Crossing Lines
by Eirian1
Summary: Sheppard relentlessly pursues those responsible for Teyla's death. Meanwhile, under threat from the Wraith, Michael goes to ground in order to protect Teyla. Back on Atlantis, Beckett prepares to take the ultimate risk in order to save Keller. VS5 No.11
1. Act 1

Author's disclaimer: I do not own _Stargate Atlantis_ and its associated characters. MGM does, for which, for the most part, they have my utmost respect. No copyright infringement is intended in writing these stories.

My deepest respect also goes to the talented actors that brought to life the characters we see in _Stargate Atlantis._ My portrayal of the characters here is based on my perception of the work of Joe Flanigan, Jason Momoa, Rachel Luttrell, Paul McGillion, David Hewlett, Robert Picardo, Connor Trinneer and Christopher Heyerdahl. Without these people and those that came before them, there would have been no _Atlantis_ as we know it today.

With the exception of personal interpretation and expansions, extracts from existing episodes of the series remain the copyright of the story and teleplay writers: Joe Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Brad Wright, Robert C Cooper, Martin Gero, Mary Kaiser, Damian Kindler, Peter DeLuise, Jill Blotevogel, Carl Binder, Kerry Glover, Sean Carley, Treena Hancock, Melissa R. Byer, Joe Flanigan, Don Whitehead, Holly Henderson, Ken Cuperus, Scott Nimerfro, Alan McCullough, Alex Levine, and David Schmidt.

Other assorted original characters (i.e. those that don't really appear in the show) are my own creation, and they, along with the original material presented here are © Eirian Phillips 2010.

Story is rated for mature readers, according to whatever rating system is adopted these days for Fan Fiction. It changes on a site by site basis… It was so much easier way back when…

There may be other virtual seasons of _SGA_ out there in cyberspace. Some may even be unofficially official. However, as a writer, I don't believe that this should discourage others from having their own ideas about things. Mine are presented here.

I can be reached at Feedback is always welcome and emails are usually answered.

Characters and events are purely fictitious, and any similarity to anyone living, transformed, dead, cloned or in any alternate universe or timeline is entirely coincidental.

**Stargate Atlantis**

** Crossing Lines**

** To make it home, sometimes you have to go too far.**

_"I'm building an army that will soon replace the Wraith as the dominant race in this galaxy."_

_"An army of monsters!"_

_"I'll admit, my early attempts were a little… crude, but that's all changed now. I've refined the retrovirus to create the perfect balance – ability well beyond any normal human but without the one weakness that will be the downfall of the Wraith."_

_Michael and Teyla, The Kindred Part 1_

**Previously On Stargate Atlantis:**

Sheppard ignored his own discomfort as he stood, tattered and bruised, but immaculately dressed in full military dress uniform, trying to send what comfort he could Beckett's way. He knew it was little enough. Another failure.

"Two days," Sheppard said. "Forty-eight hours… two thousand, eight hundred, eighty minutes," his voice cracked then, and he saw Carson open his eyes again, to look at him across the woven pallet on which Teyla's possessions, including the little hand carved crib, had been reverently placed, waiting for the time when – in lieu of her body – they would be carried through the Gate to the settlement of her people, to lie in state, before the pyre would take them all; reduce them to ash and dust that was all that remained of the woman herself, floating endlessly in the vast cold of space.

Sheppard's eyes filled with tears as he thought on all they had lost… on all _he _had lost. He cleared his throat and continued, "One hundred, seventy-two thousand, eight hundred seconds… since we lost Teyla…"

* * *

_{…Isla…}_

A short, sharp cry of distress split the air as his communication reached her and he doubled his pace until he could drop to a crouch before the foetal ball the woman had made of herself; reaching for her.

"No, you must not," she told him. "I have wronged you… Betrayed—" She broke off, instead of finishing her sentence reached for the ruined edges of her dress and ripped the bodice still further, exposing herself to him, and spreading her arms in obedient supplication.

_Isla bent both legs toward her belly and kicked out hard, connecting with the staggering Wraith's chest, tipping the balance and sent him tumbling backwards, growling… away._

_Isla braced herself, ready to turn and continue her desperate scramble for the top of the slope. The snarling of the Wraith ceased abruptly in a sickening wet squelch. The lack of noise became as terrifying as the fight had been, and breathing hard, Isla grasped a root to tether herself to the spot, and sat up, cautiously, to peek downward._

_The Wraith lay still, his eyes open, staring… unseeing, and from his chest the dark blood dripping from its jagged, barbed edges, the broken branch stood, pointing toward the now almost purple sky._

"Take me, Lord – finish your undeserved servant's life, for I have wronged you. Wronged _all _Wraith."

* * *

Anger lent his steps punch as he strode into the lab and looked around for McKay. He spotted the man, as usual hunched over a computer console, and without preamble Sheppard stormed over to him and grasped his shoulder, spinning him around.

"Sheppard," McKay spluttered in surprise, "Wha—"

"Todd, Keller! You tell me, McKay," Sheppard's voice cracked, and squeaked with the stress of everything. "You tell me or so help me, I'll—"

"Colonel Sheppard…"

From behind him, Woolsey's voice poured oil onto the already burning fire of his temper and, releasing McKay, Sheppard spun around to face the objectionable little man, further irritated to see Caldwell at Woolsey's back.

"—I understand you're grieving, but I need you to focus. _Atlantis_ needs you to focus," the expedition leader continued regardless. "It does morale no good seeing you like this. Either you need to pull yourself together or—"

"I _am_ together!" Sheppard's voice rose to a near bellow. "What I _need _is for people to start levelling with me."

"You're already blaming Todd for Teyla's death," McKay told him, the look of pain in the scientist's eyes as he spoke of Teyla almost overwhelmed Sheppard with its transference of sorrow. He took a deep breath and forced himself to listen. "What difference would it make to the way you feel even if I _did_ tell you what I suspect happened with Jennifer?"

"It… I…" Sheppard began, and then sighing said, "I just need to know."

"Trust me," McKay said glumly, looking away from the look Sheppard fixed him with. "You don't."

* * *

Her cry woke her as she arched her back as the climax took her. Aching with the remembrance of it, trembling as if caught in the moment, Keller threw back the soaked covers and struggling, dragged herself from the bed. The movement brought a rush of nausea and she gagged and swallowed hard.

She tasted blood and nausea became fear, and fear turned to panic as, moving, a stab of agony replaced the tingling pleasure as she tried to move her legs and found the movement of her hips so fluid and unfixed that they collapsed beneath her, spilling her to the floor of her quarters.

Unable to rise, she forced uncooperative limbs to haul her, crawling on all fours to the table on which she knew she'd laid her headset before she went to bed, practically pulling the table on top of her as she tried to reach it.

Still retching against the taste of blood, her hand trembling, she fit the radio into place, and keyed the mic, hardly able to speak for the sobs.

"Beckett… this… this is Keller… Help me… please, I—"

Her strength failed then and she fell forward to land hard against her shoulder. The last thing she remembered was the sound of the city wide comm. sounding the alarm, and Chuck's calm voice announcing:

"_Medical emergency. Doctor Beckett, report to personnel quarters. Repeat: medical emergency, personnel quarters._"

* * *

Jennifer gave another cry and began her breathless chant once more, making Beckett turn to hurry the others out, and pull the overhead arm of the scanner into place.

"Convergence… divergence… lost… corru—!"

"Easy now, Jennifer," he said softly.

He spoke over her, and almost yelped when she slipped one of the restraints and lashed out a bloodied hand to catch his wrist.

"Car-son…" she broke from the litany, looking up at him in desperate confusion. "He… knows. He… knows… He—"

"Who, love… who knows…?" he asked, his own confusion beginning to prickle with the frightening edge of suspicion. She couldn't answer. Another spasm of pain wracked her body and she cried out before lapsing into the same chilling, repeating plea.

"Convergence… divergence— He knows! Lost… corrupt. Converg— Help me…!"

Carson's blood began to chill as it dawned on him just what she was, most likely, asking. With false calm, he forced himself to begin the scan.

* * *

Sighing, Beckett raised his head to look properly on the immobile figure within the cell, taking in the sight of his pale skin; the indentations on his cheeks, barely formed, but enough to make the once familiar friend seem alien… unreachable.

"Why are you here, Doctor Beckett?" Lorne asked.

A long silence followed, one that Beckett hardly dare disturb with the question that lingered in his mind, chilling the very fabric of his belief. When at last he spoke his voice trembled audibly.

"He's still alive, isn't he?" he asked, "Somehow he managed to survive the Wraith, and the destruction of that Hive."

Lorne blinked slowly, long enough to give a moment when he stood with his eyes closed. When he opened them again, his gaze pierced deeper into Beckett's soul than any other living thing yet might.

Dismissively he said, "You are as much his creature as am I." Then more darkly said, "You already know the answer to that question."

Swallowing, Beckett stepped closer to the bars and lowering his voice to a near whisper, said, "And supposing someone wanted to… to speak with him…?"

Lorne frowned, tilting his head as though the question confused him, though Beckett could clearly see understanding in his eyes.

* * *

An epiphany of fury exploded inside him at the sound of Teyla's name from Beckett's lips. How dare he sully her name with the same voice, the same mind that dreamed up twisted science to make a thing of heartless evil into some _twisted_ parody of a man? But for that, she would still be here… right there with them, holding his hand when he woke, her filial concern washing over him like a cooling balm.

"Don't you speak her name! Don't you _dare_ speak her name!" The words burst from him like a gunshot and he pointed accusatorily at Beckett. "You did this – with your twisted experiments; your… you—How could you even _think_ you could change what he was. What _any _of them are!"

Beckett looked down and sighed, and some part of Ronon soared with greater agony that he didn't try to deny it.

* * *

"She was a good friend to all of us; a leader to her people, and to me… the one I never realised; never reached for; never had the courage to set aside duty to be just… John for long enough. I'll miss her… and if, Teyla, wherever you are, in whatever… embrace of the Ancestors you now find rest, I promise you… I won't stop; I won't rest until there's peace and safety in the Pegasus Galaxy for your son – for all the children, and all people of the many worlds… an end to the conflict that you, yourself, sought to end."

"Teyla's memory will go on, John Sheppard," Halling said, with a slight bow, as if in acceptance of his promise. "And peace will be an enduring legacy, when it comes."

* * *

Movement in the doorway to her quarters caught her attention, and she looked up to find the object of her thoughts regarding her with a tired softness in his eyes.

"Michael," she breathed his name in a tone to match his expression.

He swallowed, and looked away from her for a moment before he brought his eyes to once more meet with hers and said, "I wanted you to be reassured that all is well. It will be a time before we are able to leave here, or before we are forced to take a more… direct action."

"I understand," she told him quietly. "A time of calm before the coming of a storm."

"Perhaps," he admitted, taking half a step inside the door before stopping.

"It is all right," she told him. "You can come in."

Michael shook his head and she found tears coming to her eyes at his denial.

"There is work that I should attend to," he told her. "I came to ask only if there is anything that you need."

Teyla looked up and met his eyes.

_"I care a great deal."_

_Michael, The Kindred Part 1_

**Act 1**

**Forty-eight hours earlier:**

Rissek quickly banked the scout ship, instinct more than foreknowledge of expertise guiding his flight, and narrowly avoided the incoming fire of two Darts that followed more closely than he would like. The flash from the exploding projectiles just ahead of the ship momentarily blinded him and panic churned in his gut like eels in a feeding frenzy. For a time he wished that he could just peel away, lose them, but if he were to follow orders, to lead the Wraith away from the facility on which his master so greatly relied, he would need to make them believe that they had him all but caught… he and the other ships he led in the desperate run toward the waiting cruisers.

In that moment the desperation was no word of a lie.

In urgent near-panic he turned the scout ship to bank the other way, almost rolling full circle to avoid the continued weapons' fire that burned his retina against the merciless dark and cold of space. Only the knowledge that the deeper darkness ahead was the combined carapace hulls of the small fleet of cruisers, relative safety from the few Wraith Darts and the Wraith cruisers lumbering after him, served to quell his rising dread.

A flash of brightness exploded against the tip of his wing, tilting the scout ship, sending it careering to port. He turned his head in time to see the fire came, not from Darts, but from the dull silver-grey fighter craft the Humans of Atlantis often sent against them. He did not have time to curse the added ill luck before he had to grab the controls, and attempt to throw all of his weight behind the effort to prevent the scout ship from falling into a spin. If he was to safely enter the Dart Bay of the cruiser ahead, he had to achieve level flight. The darkness loomed closer even as he was losing his fight with the small craft.

Every muscle tensed, and he gasped as the cruiser's lateral weapons array opened fire on the ships he led on his insane dance through the system. The bolts cutting through the vacuum beyond his ship, beneath his wing lent him the impetus and ability he needed, the fight on the stick eased, and the craft began to level, but the tips of his wings clipped the entrance to the Dart Bay, sending him into a new spin, sparks flying in the partial atmosphere, lighting the darkness, and threatening to render the craft and all it contained into a ball of flame.

He pulled back hard on the stick, trying to slow the craft; steady her again; no wish to die, or more correctly, no wish to fail his master, truly a fate that would be worse than death.

Sparks lighted the blue-black walls in a surreal wash of amber and gold, giving the appearance of a river of blood shifting and sinking down over the walls in the wake of the stricken scout ship's bungled approach and landing.

Alarms were still sounding when Rissek, slightly bloodied, pushed the canopy release and began to climb from the ruined craft. He dare not consider the damage he had wrought, knowing that – even if he succeeded in carrying out their master's plan to the letter, and all of the Wraith were drawn away from the facility that he sought, still, to conceal – his own competence would be called to question, and he would no doubt be punished.

Armed hybrids rushed from every corridor to meet him, lowering their weapons only when they recognised him as one of their own. He did not wait for them to ask for explanation, merely bellowed with what breath was left in his lungs to be sure that the urgent order was heard over the cacophony of two-tone alarm.

"Recall the Darts! We must jump away… Jump away now, before they have a chance to reach the facility; lead them away before they realise…" He began to limp hurriedly in the direction of the bridge as not one of the hybrids seemed to heed his words. "Those are His orders!"

* * *

"What is he doing?" The commander of the leading cruiser watched with a deepening frown as the Abomination's Hive began a slow, lumbering turn, their Darts almost forming a shield wall to cover their slow manoeuvre, preventing enemy ships – Wraith and Human like – from reaching the vessel.

"The Hive is opening a hyperspace window," his second in command announced in calmer tones than the commander could feel through the tenuous mental link they shared. "They are running."

"They must not escape. Target their hyperdrive!"

"But, Commander—"

"I said target their hyperdrive!" The commander was in no mood for excuses. He had felt the touch of the Queen's mind in his, and the threat she had embedded there. Any that failed her would be worthless; offal to be left as bait for the jackals that still ran in the Abomination's wake, for she would find them – all of them – and wipe them out.

"Our weapons cannot penetrate the protective blockade, Commander," his second turned to him, an imploring sensation pushing against his mental defences.

_We must withdraw before the remaining Darts are destroyed and we are left helpless. Strategy, Commander, we must—_

Growling, the commander severed the mental link with his second as he paced away from his own station.

* * *

Sheppard stumbled, and made a grab for the back of the con officer's chair as the deck beneath his feet lurched.

"Damn it!" Caldwell hissed, and reflexively threw up an arm in front of his face as the brightness of an explosion bathed the flight deck in a ruddy orange glow. "Shields up!" He turned his head to Sheppard then, and Sheppard saw the 'I told you so' in the other man's eyes even before the words issued forth in an earnest tirade. "I told you this was a bad idea, Sheppard!"

The deck rocked again as a salvo of fire from one of the Wraith cruisers impacted _Daedalus'_ shielded hull and from beside the cruiser, several needle-nosed Darts came screaming toward them.

"Save the 'I told you so' for another time, Steven," Sheppard called, flinching and raising his voice to be heard over the rush of the fire suppression system that had activated behind him as a panel exploded. "I suggest we concentrate on getting us out of here."

"I'm open to suggestions," Caldwell snapped, gesturing to the HUD that now graced the space in front of the forward view screen, "because as far as I can tell, we bypassed the frying pan and leaped straight into the fire."

Sheppard peered at the sensor readings that intermittently ghosted in and out of theatre as the interference from whatever in the system was causing it strengthened and faded in turn.

_Daedalus_ had come out of hyperspace right into the middle of the fighting, and all around, Wraith and Hybrid forces alike were turning their way.

"We have no choice," he said gravely. "We gotta launch the F302s."

* * *

"Stay close," Sheppard said, his voice only slightly muffled by the face mask he wore and instructed his wingmen, "Follow my lead."

"_Copy that, Colonel_," Westburn said, and Sheppard didn't miss the note of apprehension in his voice.

"_Affirmative_," Attley confirmed, dipping her wing almost in a salute.

"Steady, Major," Sheppard admonished the display, "let's save the acrobatics for when we need them, Attley."

"_Sorry, Colonel_," she said, though without any hint of contrition in her voice, "_just a little eager that's all. We—_"

A bright flash of incoming fire cut across her lazy comm. chatter, and prompted Sheppard to dip his left wing in a sudden roll to get them out of the avenue of fire between the incoming Wraith and Hybrid, both of whom seem to have momentarily forgotten their animosity in favour of targeting their mutual enemy.

"_Three more of 'em, sir, they're on our six_," Westburn said breathlessly.

"Steady," Sheppard crooned, recognising the edge of panic in the man's rapid breath and higher than normal pitch. "Stay with me, Westburn."

As he levelled from the roll to port, Sheppard pushed the stick forward, nosing down – though altitude meant little to nothing in a dogfight out in the vastness of open space – to put them beneath the Darts.

"All right," Sheppard breathed a sigh of relief as he turned his head first one way and then the other to see both his wingmen had followed him in formation. "Stay sharp. Eyes on the target – we need to keep _Daedalus _clear. Don't wait for my orders. You see a target and you're clear, take it out."

Both of the members of his wing confirmed his orders, and a sense of almost fatalistic excitement settled over him. This was his demesne… pilot, fighter… flyboy.

Sensing rather than seeing the Darts at the side of his 302, Sheppard banked sharply, manoeuvring rapidly to bring the 302's weapons to bear. Somewhere in the back of his mind he still registered the comm. chatter of his wing, but he was clarity and focus where it came to his target. He rolled out of the banking manoeuvre and even before the image of the Dart – and he couldn't tell if the pilot was Wraith or Hybrid, and neither did he care – centred in the middle of the targeting reticule, and his headset provided an audible confirmation of the lock, his thumb was hard on the firing button. The weapon spat bright flashes across the dark vacuum between the 302 and the darker shadow of the Wraith craft that blossomed into a miniature orange nova as his shots struck on target, destroying the enemy ship.

His elation was short lived as he glanced aside and saw Attley weaving left and right, chasing a target of her own, but oblivious to the second Dart that was following close on her six, trying to make a target of _her._

"Attley, watch your six," he ordered, "pull up and break right."

She didn't acknowledge the order, not verbally at least, instead the 302 she was flying suddenly made an ascending roll to the right, freeing the woman from danger, and putting the second Dart right into her line of fire.

"_Locking on_," she said, and Sheppard couldn't help but feel a burgeoning respect for the woman. She had a no nonsense, calm attitude, even in the heat of battle. It would serve her well. Even before he registered that she had announced that she had a lock, a bright flash from ahead of him confirmed that the lock had been good, and a second Dart had been taken out by their combined wing, but a prickling in the back of his neck gave Sheppard the unconscious warning against complacency.

"_Holy Mother—!_"

Westbury's exclamation had Sheppard tense with anticipation, and in the next second he had to bank sharply to the right to avoid his wingman's 302 as the rookie pilot came careering out of nowhere, running from the cruiser that loomed nearer to their flight path, clearly following his, and the other flights of 302s, trying to target the smaller craft with the greater fire power of their weapons. If Sheppard were to give them all a fighting chance he had to take out the cruiser, and he had to do it fast.

"Attley, Westburn, circle around and follow me in. We're going closer."

"_Closer?_" Westburn queried, his voice still wavering, this time with incredulity.

"Trust me," Sheppard answered lazily. "I know what I'm doing. Trick I learned from an old…"

He trailed off… hearing the sound of the voice from memory as if it came from his headset in that instant, not those many years ago…

_"Okay… Time to do some damage." He looked up as the Hive on which he had hitched a ride came to an almost immediate standstill after exiting the fluid brightness of hyperspace. He reached out to push a button on the console, activating the comm. in the hope of raising either one of his friends. They were aboard the Hive. "Ronon, Rodney, can you hear me? Rodney, I know this is a long shot but if you can hear me, please respond."_

_The following silence was like a symphony of hopelessness._

_"If you're near a radio I need you to come in," he repeated himself, as much for his own presence of mind as for any other reason. "I need to know your location."_

_Another long pause; another loud silence._

_"Guys?"_

_"Colonel Sheppard." The voice that answered was neither Ronon nor McKay, but none-the-less it was familiar, and broke the silence as an overly sinister clash of cymbals that trickled ice down his spine. "Is that you?"_

_"Who's this?" He didn't need to ask, but asked none-the-less, unable to believe his terrible luck._

_"You know me as Michael."_

_A hundred possibilities for a reasonable answer filtered through the growing dread, sarcasm clawing its way to the top of the tumbling deck of cards._

_"Sorry, got the wrong number," he said._

_"Ronon and Doctor McKay are still alive," Michael answered, evidently taking no notice of Sheppard's wit under pressure, a wit that gave way to worry as his imagination supplied yet more terrifying images of what could befall his friends._

_"What are you gonna do with them?" he demanded, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice._

_"If you want them to live, listen to me," Michael said, and something in the tone of his voice confused Sheppard. There was no threat, only a sincerity bordering on concern. Sheppard bit his lip. He had little choice but to hear the Wraith out. Michael continued, "If your friends are in pursuit, you need to disable these ships in order for them to reach us."_

_"If you really wanna help, why don't you just __**do**__ that?" Sheppard asked, confusion giving way to irritation, fuelled by greater concern. What was Michael playing at?_

_"They would know," Michael said._

_"Aren't you, 'they'?"_

_"Please believe me when I say I was as deceived as you were."_

_"Oh, I don't know, I was pretty deceived."_

_"It seems, Colonel, that because of what you did to me, the Wraith no longer see me as one of their own."_

_"Oh," suddenly it all became clear to Sheppard. Michael's willingness to turn against the Wraith was nothing more than an attempt at self preservation. "That's why you wanna help – because you don't feel welcome."_

_"We don't have time to discuss this," Michael insisted._

_"Sure we do. I've got, er," he looked down at his tactical display to check on the status of his atmosphere, "three hours of air left."_

_"Where are you?" Michael asked._

_"Wouldn't you like to know," he answered, a sarcastic grin, less than satisfying, since he knew Michael couldn't see it, crossing his face._

_"I need to know what level you're on so I can guide you from there," Michael answered with an exaggerated patience that wiped the smile from Sheppard's face._

_"You mean… trust you?" Sheppard asked, the remaining sarcasm leaking from his smile to colour his voice._

_"Are you in a position not to?"_

_"Oh," he started, but his confidence was slipping – Michael had a point, without a plan; without knowing exactly how he could act against the Hives it was destined to be the short version of a rescue attempt; the kind that usually ended in a commendation – awarded posthumously. "I've got you right where I want you."_

_"I doubt I will be allowed to live much longer." Michael's answer jarred him out of his self recriminations, "and I very much want to continue living. If you want to survive as I do then I suggest you tell me where you are."_

_It was as if Michael had somehow gotten inside his head, heard his doubts, his fears… his worries for his friends and for his people. He knew that if he had, the Wraith's motivations where not going to be in the slightest bit altruistic – as he had surmised before, Sheppard knew this was all about self preservation – so where was the harm in using Michael as Michael was attempting to use __**him**__?_

_He sighed and finally said, "I'm outside the Hive in a 302 about to blast your ship."_

_He also saw no harm in adding in a little threat. It was no more than bravado, and he was aware that Michael would likely see right through him, but he still had to try – for his own peace of mind._

_"You still wanna help?" he challenged._

_"Targeting the ventral hyperdrive generators would be most effective." Michael said simply. The answer gave him both the key to his course of action, and also another quite unhealthy dose of confusion. Helping him with a view to helping himself was what he expected of the Wraith, but doing so in a manner that would prove injurious to his own people…? That was something that discomfited Sheppard more than he cared to admit._

_"Yeah," he said, trying to keep the confusion out of his voice if not from his face, "that's what I was thinking."_

_"Then I suggest you act now before you are discovered…"_

In that moment, as back then, Sheppard shivered. He did not understand why their fates seemed so inextricable – his tangled with Michael's in a way that transcended the fact that he, along with McKay, Beckett, Ronon's and…

He hesitated as he thought of Teyla, the fist of grief wrapping itself around his gut and squeezing hard. Forcing himself to continue his train of thought, he wrapped himself in denial that all of their fates were so inextricable from Michael's that everything that had happened, and everything that was to come, hinged on the unwelcome symbiosis between their lives.

"_Colonel?_" Westburn's voice cut through the thoughts and self recriminations, bringing him firmly back to the present.

"We're gonna skim close along the surface of the ship targeting the ventral hyperdrive generators. Take those out and the ship loses main power and we're home free."

* * *

As the light-spattered blackness of normal space gave way to the swirling maelstrom of colour that showed the progress of the Hive through subspace, Rissek relaxed. Breathing out a sigh, he peered at the forward screen as it delivered the fleet telemetry; tried to make sense of the numbers that flashed and fell rapidly in Wraith characters on the screen.

"Give me a damage report," he instructed, "and someone find out—"

"It is irrelevant."

Rissek turned, spinning in place to face the speaker that had strode onto the bridge, and shivered as he realised the hybrid's upright stance and proud bearing – the lofty way he carried his head – could mean nothing other than that he, himself, was staring his own death in the face.

Still he could not stop himself from stammering, "Irrelevant, I—"

"He ordered the fleet to intercept the Wraith to allow our Hive to escape and to ensure the facility remains undiscovered. He will see whatever ships have been destroyed as acceptable losses," the other hybrid told him. Then he stepped toward the centre console, and in spite of himself, Rissek moved aside, deferring to the other soldier.

"We were away before they—" he said, trying to reassure himself as much as any other person on the bridge. "We could have lured them all away, and then _none_ would need to have been lost. If you had followed my orders instead of launching our Darts and ordering the cruisers to attack the humans, we—"

"You should return to your quarters and tend to your injuries," the other hybrid interrupted smoothly, his voice not unkind until it hardened to the cold crystal of the following order he issued to other newly arrived members of the crew. "See that he gets there. Encourage him to remain."

The words were a clear dismissal of his service on the bridge, and Rissek knew, as soon as the hybrid soldiers took his arms, that in his case, such a dismissal would bring about his end.

* * *

Antedar finally turned away from the monitor where he had been reviewing the performance of the small fleet left in defence of the system.

The 'acceptable losses' had, at the time of the Hive's departure, already turned out to be greater than he had at first imagined they would be. However, as long as the Wraith could be prevented from searching for their facilities, his master's plan, and the future of The Cause would be safe and, more importantly, _he_ would have carried out the duties set upon him at Rissek's failure.

He turned his thoughts to the hybrid that was now little better than a prisoner awaiting execution. He may as well have been held in the brig as in his quarters, but what remained of a sense of sympathy between colleagues of sorts led him to allow that small concession. He would not wish to be in Rissek's place once the Hive was reunited with its master.

"The battle with the Atlanteans and the Wraith continues to draw them away from the second planet," his chosen second's voice sounded in the uneasy silence, an almost emotionless monotone.

Antedar nodded, secure in his own thoughts at his second's answer. Finally turning away from the viewing screen, he allowed his attention to turn to the duties that remained aboard the Hive – to make sure that the child, and his chosen nursemaid, remained safe and well – until his master recalled him to the Devian system.

* * *

"Commander?"

Aboard a cruiser at the edge of the battle, one of the Wraith bridge crew turned from his position to face the taller Wraith standing at the centre console, "We must withdraw; regroup our scattered Darts and strengthen our position."

"No," the commander barked, ignoring the querying expression on the faces of his subordinates. He could not explain the feeling, but it was a nagging one, a surety that all was not as it seemed. The Darts left behind were trying _too_ hard to scatter the cruisers of the Wraith fleet; drawing them into an open area of the system. They had actively turned on the humans when they had emerged from hyperspace, rather than leave them to the greater number of Wraith craft. There was something there that they were missing.

He had no further evidence than that to support the feeling, and that made him uncomfortable with the thought that he might be called upon by superiors to explain his actions, but it did not change the decision to which he had already committed himself in his mind, and which he followed up in the subsequent moments as he ordered his bridge crew to change course.

"There," he said, pointing a finger to the displayed image of the nearby moon of one of the planets in the system. "Take us into a low orbit behind the planet's moon. Keep us there, allow it to… shelter our cruiser from the battle, then turn our sensors to the planet. They are hiding something… or fighting to defend it, and I want to know what it is."

"Commander?" his navigator queried as though he were unsure that he had correctly heard the order.

"Do as I order," he snapped, rounding on the unfortunate Wraith with a sub-vocal hiss giving added menace to his presence. "I wish to be the one to discover what it is that they wish to keep from us… what kind of devilry The Abomination's forces will unleash upon us so that we may better defend the Queen when she arrives."

"And the humans?"

The dismissive sound of contempt that came from the commander's throat left none on the bridge in any doubt as to what he intended to do about the humans already joined in battle in the system…

…nothing at all.

* * *

The dark shape of the hull, drawing nearer and nearer as he led his team in, sped past faster than the conscious mind could register. This was the time in which a fighter pilot's intuition had to take precedence; when a pilot had to trust himself – cease second guessing and just fly. Thus it was that Sheppard did not 'see' the problem before it was already too late.

"Westburn, bank right!" he ordered, trying to remain calm as the bulk of the Hive began to turn. He tried to convey that calm in the voice he used to order his wingman's manoeuvre, but failed in both instances. Westburn's wing tipped to the left in preparation for following his order.

"Right!" he called, abandoning all pretext of calm.

"_I'm trying, Sir. She—"_

Westburn's voice cut off with a squeak as sparks from the contact of ship to ship streamed off his crumpling wingtip. Sheppard swore, and prepared to roll his 302 into danger in an attempt to save his wingman, meaning to use his wake to push the other 302 to safety.

A second later, Westbury managed to pull himself away from the Hive that was still turning beside them, his injured 302 wobbling and barely controlled in flight.

"_I got it, sir_," he said, relief clear in his voice, "_but I'm out of this—_"

Orange flashes momentarily blinded Sheppard as he turned his gaze in his wingman's direction.

"_Westbury, hang tight, I'm coming in_," Attley's voice on the comm. stilled Sheppard's blood. For Attley to go to Westbury's defence against the Dart that had targeted his out of control craft, she would have to put herself in danger, in direct line of fire.

"Negative, Attley," Sheppard ordered.

"_I can do this, sir_," she said confidently.

"Negative, Attley," he repeated, "I won't have you risking your—"

"_Westbury, on my mark break right, repeat, full right rudder_," Attley ignored him, and grumbling, Sheppard banked his own 302 in an effort to put himself into position. If he could take out the Dart before it further endangered either of his wingmen, there would be no need for the frantic back and forth orders, and would leave only the debriefing, in which he fully intended to bite a strip off of Attley's ass and feed it to her with mayo and two slices of bread.

He saw the danger; felt the danger from the tension in Westburn's voice as he acknowledged the ranking pilot's order and made one last ditch effort to halt the snowball as it tumbled down the mountain of this abortive assault on the Hive.

"Attley, pull up!" he spat, "that's an order!"

Westburn banked, but too soon, responding, Sheppard was sure, to the pair of energy bolts streaming toward him through the unforgiving black of space.

Without a thought, Sheppard threw all his weight against the stick, pushing it left, at the same time stabbing downward with his thumb against the trigger, firing the 302's weapons as he rolled, trying to intercept the incoming energy bolts with his own. He might as easily have been chasing rainbows.

"_Oh cra—"_

Attley's silenced exclamation became a blossoming orange that turned to white, then crimson, and finally faded to the chitinous black of the Hive's hull that shone like a scar in the absence of space…

_A bright, yellow tipped inferno erupted beside them, inside of him. Filling him with agony, pushing him beyond the limits of anything he could endure. He practically punched the console as he abandoned what little mental control he still possessed and grabbed the manual sticks, banking the craft and accelerating to maximum._

_It wasn't enough._

_From the rear compartment the fizzling crack of exploding crystal blowing out the panel became a deafening cascade of sound, and then… everything dissolved into the whiteness of nothing._

The scream of the 302's alarms cut through the painful memory and shook the present danger back into Sheppard's awareness with barely enough time for him to register the debris flying directly at his cockpit canopy. Spinning and tumbling it came at him like a thrown axe, and even as he rolled, simultaneously dipping the nose of his craft, struck hard enough to leave a spider web of cracks that began to spread almost lazily across his field of vision. His part in the fight was as finished as Westburn's, who was already limping back to _Daedalus_.

Growling denial, he pushed forward on his stick, stubbornly heading toward the still-turning Hive.

* * *

"Colonel Caldwell, Sheppard's 302 is hit," Marks said softly.

"Damage?" Caldwell snapped, turning his attention to the sensor reading he could see out of the corner of his eye, on Marks' display.

"Yes, sir, he—"

"Open a channel," he ordered.

"Aye, sir," the comm. officer keyed a button and almost before the contact was confirmed, Caldwell started speaking.

"Sheppard, this is Caldwell, you're hit and venting atmosphere. Return to _Daedalus _immediately," he said.

"_Negative, Stephen, I think I can still—"_

"That's an order, Sheppard," Caldwell interrupted. "We'll find another way."

He heard Sheppard open a channel to reply once more, but all that came through was Sheppard's defeated sigh. Even so, it promoted relief to the front of Caldwell's mind and he nodded to himself. Perhaps they really _would_ find another way to achieve restitution for Teyla's death.

* * *

Movement in the doorway to her quarters caught her attention, and she looked up to find the object of her thoughts regarding her with a tired softness in his eyes.

"Michael," she breathed his name in a tone to match his expression.

He swallowed, and looked away from her for a moment before he brought his eyes to once more meet with hers and said, "I wanted you to be reassured that all is well. It will be a time before we are able to leave here, or before we are forced to take a more… direct action."

"I understand," she told him quietly. "A time of calm before the coming of a storm."

"Perhaps," he admitted, taking half a step inside the door before stopping.

"It is all right," she told him. "You can come in."

Michael shook his head and she found tears coming to her eyes at his denial.

"There is work that I should attend to," he told her. "I came to ask only if there is anything that you need."

Teyla looked up and met his eyes.

For many long moments, Teyla sat looking into the burning gold of Michael's eyes, feeling, through their bond, the doubt and worry that gripped him; held them both, she realised, and sensed the need in him that matched her own, but could she now reach out – cross that line?

"Michael," she whispered and her breathing quickened. "I… I am… afraid."

She saw the rapid breath he took, and felt the decision settle over him, but in spite of herself and everything she knew, pulled back against the pillows as he stepped forward and the door fell closed behind him.

"There is no reason to fear, Teyla," he said. His steps were measured as he crossed the room toward her, never once taking his gaze from hers. "This facility is perfectly safe, and in the unlikely event that hostile forces penetrate the defences, is well guarded from within."

He came to a halt at the side of the bed, an almost-smile ghosting on his lips, which she mirrored to assure him that she understood. Sitting up she reached for his hand. This time, unlike many others, he did not pull away from her touch. Instead he wrapped the strength of his fingers around hers, his gaze falling to their now entwined fingers.

"You do not believe I would allow any harm to come to you?" he murmured, still looking at their hands.

"I know you would not," she admitted softly, and closed her eyes, her breathing quickening still more at the pass of his thumb across the back of her hand.

"You should rest," he said softly, looking up from where they touched to find her eyes with his own.

_-rest- -rest- -rest- -rest- _

…_stay…_

She shook her head, and voiced aloud the single word she had pushed to him in response to his mental command.

"Stay," she said, adding after only a heartbeat's pause, "please."

"Teyla, I…" he faltered.

_-cannot-_

"Michael," she whispered.

…_cannot or w—…?_

"…dare not," he confessed softly, cutting off her mental question.

"I need you," she barely breathed.

Michael let out a long, slow breath, still holding her hand he carefully sat down on the side of the bed, tilting his head as he regarded her. She made herself hold his gaze, feeling her colour rising, and the fluttering that had suddenly increased around her solar plexus.

"No." The word was little more than a growl that rumbled around his chest. "You need an image of me that you see in your mind."

_-mind- -mind- -mind- -mind- _

Using the hand he held, he drew her closer, sliding his free hand under her elbow as she came away from the pillows and reached for him, pressed her hand flat against his chest, over his beating heart. She trembled; couldn't help the uneven breaths that made their way in and out of her body at the warring of desire and common sense within her.

* * *

Teyla's hand settled against his chest, pushing the warmed leather against the linen beneath and stirring Michael's over-alert senses. He could feel the conflict within her, the mingled arousal and trepidation, a mirror of his own needs to hold her; take her to him even knowing how dangerous it could be… for both of them.

Yet to maintain the restraint; to force the mantle of denial down over them both again after so many years of longing and need; after so much had been admitted if not accepted, it was simply too hard, and the walls with which he had surrounded himself slipped and began to crumble.

Drawing her closer still, he brought the hand he still held to his lips, turning her hand in his so that he could nip lightly at the inside of her wrist. She gasped and her fingers tightened around his for a moment, before she let go completely and slipped her fingers into his hair.

Michael stilled, and took an almost growling breath before he leaned his head to almost nuzzle at the touch of her hand in his hair, allowed himself to be guided by the insistent pressure that had her draw him down to nestle his face in the crook of her neck, and he breathed in deeply of her sweet orchid-like scent; heady and arousing.

He tightened his arms around her, running his own fingers into her hair and pulling gently until she surrendered, tipping back her head to allow his open-mouthed kisses to travel over her neck and throat. He felt the pleasure of the sensations he gave through their bond before her soft moan reached his ears, and set aflame to his already smouldering passion.

"Surrender," he breathed between kisses, and she pulled away from him and straightened up enough to make words of her pleasured moans.

"Take me," she murmured.

_-show me how- -how- -how- -how- -how-_

…_love me…_

He caught her face almost gently between his hands and guided her to meet his waiting kiss, long and slow it began, the press of his lips against hers… the shared breath… the rising passion until her lips parted beneath his, inviting more, and he dipped his tongue into her mouth to tangle with her own, drinking deep of their shared desire.

* * *

Beckett took a moment to adjust the flow of Keller's IV and check the monitors again to ensure the words he was about to speak were the truth and not some vaguely hopeful notion.

"Well," he began with a sigh, "she's stable for now. I'm giving her a therapy which consists of a combination of drugs: analgesia, sedatives, NRTIs—"

"Aren't those used to combat the actions of a retrovirus?" Woolsey interrupted.

"Aye," Beckett answered, beginning to guide Woolsey away from Keller's bedside, "Normally they are. When I admitted her to the infirmary, some of the symptoms she was exhibiting were indicative of possible infection. I haven't yet been able to either confirm or rule that out as her blood panel keeps coming back as inconclusive but—"

Keller moaned, turning her head against the pillow and whispering words from a dry throat in an almost desperate fashion. "He… he… knows… corrupt… convergence…"

Beckett tightened his jaw against Keller's distress, and watched as Woolsey stared in what looked like horrified fascination at the woman's distress. He cleared his throat and continued, "—the drug seems to be helping to control some of the more acute symptoms so I've continued with it anyway."

"What does she mean?" Woolsey asked, turning his attention Beckett's way again. The doctor's blood ran cold.

"To be honest, I don't think she knows what's she's saying," he lied, "and _I_ certainly have no clue. I assume it's just a product of her delirium, perhaps based on something to do with the research she was doing with Todd."

"Bottom line, Doctor," Woolsey said with a sigh, and Beckett watched as he looked over at Keller again and he couldn't help but follow the base commander's gaze. "Is she going to be all right?"

"Well," he said on the edge of a sigh. "Right now she's responding well to the drug therapy, her periods of lucidity are actually on the increase, in spite of how it may look here. I'm hopeful that, in time, as we get to the bottom of this, she'll make a full recovery."

Woolsey appeared to consider his words, his eyes moving from monitor to monitor; back to Keller and finally settling once again on Beckett himself.

"Doctor Beckett," Woolsey said at last. "As of now, I'm reappointing you to full status as Atlantis' Chief Medical Officer."

Woolsey nodded, apparently satisfied with his own decision and then turned and started for the infirmary door. Beckett read him like a neon sign. The man was washing his hands of Keller; had already consigned her to the status of one lost in the pursuit of their duties – KIA, the military called it, but civilian members of the expedition had no such cosy acronym, and the thought of it left his already chilled blood colder still. He turned and began to hurry after the base commander.

"With all due respect, Mister Woolsey, I don't think we're there yet," he protested fervently, and reached out to take the other man's arm and pull him to a standstill. When Woolsey turned to him a moment later and tugged his arm, somewhat sharply, out of his grasp, Beckett's fear and anger combined into a ball of superheated Scottish fury. Before he could stop himself, he spat, "Quite frankly, your singular disregard for Doctor Keller's wellbeing is more than a little disturbing. It's inhuman. I saw M—"

"Take care, sir," Woolsey warned angrily, interrupting, "before I have you written up for insubordination."

"You think I care about that?" Beckett said, almost yelping in incredulity. "I have a duty of care to all my patients to provide the best medical attention I'm able. That doesn't include writing them off like you've obviously done. I'm just through telling you I believe Jennifer's going to make a full recovery, and here y'are practically having me signing her death certificate. I won't—"

"Doctor Beckett… Carson," Woolsey interrupted again, this time clearly trying to control his temper. "What I'm asking you to do is accept my decision to reinstate you as CMO, nothing more, and frankly we were _there,_ as you so eloquently put it, the moment she returned to Atlantis infected with… whatever it is she's suffering from, pursuant to which shouldn't she—"

Anticipating what Woolsey was about to suggest, Beckett interrupted, "She's not contagious."

"You're sure of that?"

"If she, or whatever pathogen that's acting on her system, were a danger to Atlantis, it would have triggered the city's automatic quarantine lockdown," he answered, and then gesturing around him, and at the open doorway in which they stood, he continued. "That's obviously not the case."

"I'll take your word for it, Doctor," Woolsey said. "In the meantime…"

Woolsey started to move again, and once more Beckett reached out to put a hand onto his arm; step into his path.

"Look," he said, sighing and forcing himself into some semblance of reasonable calm. "All I'm asking is for you not to be unreasonably hasty here. I'm happy to continue on as _Acting_ CMO, but until I truly _do_ have to put Jennifer Keller's body into stasis, I'm not gonnae—"

"Car-son…"

From behind him, Keller's voice, little more than a rasping whisper cut across his sorrowful declamation and he turned, as did Woolsey, to look over at the stricken woman. She held out her hand in his direction, trembling as it was.

"Your duty of care, Doctor," Woolsey said, raising his eyebrow and nodding pointedly in Keller's direction.

Fixing an expression on his face that told the base commander that their conversation was far from over, Carson Beckett let him go, and hurried back to Keller's side.

* * *

Teyla reached for Michael as he returned to her and drew her into his arms, the heavy leather of his coat and other outer wear long since discarded. Through the soft linen of his undershirt he could feel the passion heating her skin, and Michael longed to devour her needs with long, slow caresses that he intended would leave her trembling with a greater hunger still. Infinitely slowly he dipped his head and took her lips beneath his, captured in his languorous possession the passion that slumbered beneath the blanket of tenderness with which he covered her.

Dizzied by the sensations spiralling maddeningly inside of him, Michael gasped, breaking the kiss as her fingers slipped beneath his shirt, questing against his skin, and mirrored her touch, his fingers parting the folds of her tunic, already unfastened in the strengthening of their surrender toward this union.

She moaned as he cupped the fullness of her breast and ran his thumb across the peak of a nipple. She arched her back to bring her body closer to the ache that sharpened low in his belly. He growled when the mound of her brushed against his groin; against the growing hardness there and tore his lips from hers to draw them in hot, open-mouthed kisses descending over her chin, and neck, until, pushing her tunic aside completely he closed his lips and teeth around her nipple, sucking her into the warmth of his mouth and nipped gently.

She answered, crying out his name, pressing closer still and raking at his back as she tugged the fabric of his shirt upward, and he relented in his tender assault on her breasts to remove it, returning to gather her against him, her dampened skin pressed against his chest, as he drew her over him; lying back.

"Teyla," he murmured softly, running his fingers through her hair, then moaned, rumbling with it as her kisses wet the skin of his neck and chest, running the length of each scar he still carried, fading into memory, but still, somehow, a part of their shared past.

She rose over him, straddled him, letting her head fall back, and spilling her hair against his hands which automatically rose in support beneath the loose, soft woven flax of her tunic, which she pushed away to flutter gracefully along the length of her raised arms, until she could pull it free, exposing the burnished gold of her skin to his hooded gaze, the beauty of her body piecing deep within what soul his humanity had granted him.

Below, scalding and soaked in need of him, she teased against him, trapped his hardness between them and barely moved against him with each rapid breath, and he growled in need, his own breathing quickening to match the almost frantic tattoo his heart beat in his chest.

"Make love with me, Michael," she invited, her voice a low murmur in the otherwise breathy silence.

Growling softly, Michael drew her closer, turning them both until she lay beneath him. He ran his hand along her side, urging her passion with knowing caresses until he could tease at her thigh, raise the litheness of her limb to cradle his hip as he moved closer, the head of his risen need pressed against the ache he could feel through their mental sharing.

He hissed as Teyla's nails grazed along the line of his spine, catching every sensitive nerve and sending fire spiralling to engulf his already seared senses. Emotion and sensation flooded every part of him, overwhelming and yet so welcome; a sense of need… belonging.

He opened his eyes and met hers, brown and gold whirling together in his psyche as he joined them body to body. She cried out at his strong, sure possession, drawing a breathless, rumbling cry of his own as she trembled around him, her muscles caressing the length of him as he took her to himself; opened to her body and mind as she did to him.

…_Michael…_

He felt the single sob that shook her form as their hips met and he rocked against her, feeling the pulse of every muscle around him, drawing him higher. There was no separation, not any more as they began to move together, stroking with hands and body, skin against skin, sex within sex; joining in more than just the physical.

_Suspended they lay body to body as they were now, moving as one, the darkness below overwhelming in intensity…_

Teyla gasped and almost pulled away from him, but he held her close, murmured her name and pressed his length deeper still inside her. Her gasp became a cry and her pleasure flooded through him, joined with his own in their bond and he mirrored the emotion and sensation to her, a mental penetration beyond any they had ever known.

"Teyla…"

They moved as one, guided by the beat of her heart he filled her; surrendered himself to her body with a breathless rhythm, unhurried yet consuming. Each movement he made, each demanding thrust met as she arched her back to meet his descent, squeezing around him until each breath; each move they made filled him with the heat of every growing sensation they shared; drew him higher into physical ecstasy.

_Impressions and memories streamed from each of them, rushing from the darkness beneath them to wind around them; weave them closer, until they became a part of the fluid darkness as it exploded into the brightness of flame around them._

_-parmhunaeterna-_

* * *

The image dominated her mind, terrifying, overwhelming and yet so acutely beautiful, that the ache of sensitivity it wound around her, the dissolution of separateness between her and Michael left Teyla almost literally sobbing as the moment of ecstasy broke over her.

She felt the momentary pain of his opening within her, but it was fleet, and drowned in the heat that flooded from him in worship of her, filling her completely, the tide of his life inside of her pulling her under; subsuming her into their shared moment of completion.

"Mich—"

…_-hael…_

The gasp she gave transcended either state, and left breathless by the sobbing pleasure that wracked her frame, she clutched him to her, wound tightly into the ecstasy by the tremor of his body against hers as his surrender slowed, and spent, he lowered his head to her shoulder, breathing hard, and the final wave of her own release broke over her, delivering her softly into the safety of his arms.

For many long moments, neither of them moved.

"Michael," she whispered, running a soft touch over his cheek.

"Teyla," he answered just as softly, and carefully withdrawing, rolled to his back, drawing her with him as though he couldn't bear to be parted from her, wrapping the cover over their rapidly cooling bodies. "My Parmhunaeterna…"

"What does it mean?" she asked quietly, tipping her head back where it rested against his shoulder so that she could see him. He looked down to meet her gaze and his eyes were shining with the reflected dark fire of which they were both a part.

"You have seen me as no other," he told her, "as I truly am."

The answer to his statement dawned in her so naturally she knew it could not have been anything other than the truth, and though it disturbed her, brought a strange heavy sensation to settle over her limbs, and buzz in the pit of her stomach, she said, "And yet, still I—"

"Sshhh," he said, and drew her up to meet his waiting kiss. It was soft, tenderness incarnate, and so unlike to anything she knew of him that she felt the heat of fresh tears filling her eyes. He broke the kiss as gently as he began it, releasing her to settle against him once more, her head on his chest.

With exhaustion nipping at the edge of her awareness in the best of ways, she breathed in deeply, filling her senses with the scent of their mingled desires; warmed by it. A thought trickled idly into her mind, a sensory memory of another time when she had noticed his mental touch around hers so strongly.

"It really _was_ beautiful," she murmured softly. She felt him move, and looked up to meet the querying tilt of his head. She answered, "The nebula."

Michael almost smiled, and moved his hand to tenderly brush back the hair from the side of her face.

"I took us there because I believed you would think so," he said. "Rest now. We will pass that way again."

"And this?" she asked, barely a whisper.

…_us…_

_-parmhunaeterna- -aeterna- -erna- -na- -a-_

"My Queen." He formed the words in silence, but she heard them all the same.

* * *

As he reached her side, Carson slipped his warm, strong hand into hers, and cradled it with the other.

"There now, Jennifer, it's all right. Try to relax."

"Hmm, no… I ca—" she tried to speak the words that were in her mind, confused as it was; to grip his fingers as strongly as she could and warn him of what she could feel, of that which confirmed her fear as the source of this illness. She gathered herself enough to utter another single word, tugging at his hand. "Bleeding."

"I know, love," he said softly, resting his hand against her brow, and she could see he had not understood what she meant even as he continued, "It's why you called me, you remember? We've been working to—"

"No," she whispered, "Now…"

She tugged his hand closer to her body, to where he felt the slight run of blood along the crease between body and thigh, and watched as understanding dawned and a frown, less worried and more afraid, settled over his face an instant before he turned and drew the curtains around her bed.

"Makes… sense…" she took great breaths between the words, "…point… contact, I—"

"But the scans," he said, his voice full of concern and worry, and she realised he was as much berating himself for what he thought he must have missed. "There was nothing. I—"

"Carson," she stopped his frantic preparations for the inevitable exam with a touch on his arm.

"Not… your fault," she said as firmly as she could. "Mine. Probably… probably… infected… myself with… with the… D and C."

* * *

Her words stopped Carson cold, and he came back to her side, taking her hand again and looking down into her eyes.

"Absolutely not," he told her, keeping his own churning emotions at bay, "don't you go blaming yourself for this. Todd—"

"I… was… complicit… Carson, I—"

"He manipulated you into thinking it was what you wanted, Jennifer, you said yourself you… you… you—"

"Carson, please… just…" Her eyes filled with tears. "Just stop. I'm so… tired, I… can't…"

"Jennifer Keller, you listen to me," he felt his anger bubbling to obliterate the fearful imaginings his knowledge of the woman's genetic make-up overwhelmed him with. "If what I believe is true, then I know two things for certain. First, you're very frightened, and I understand that. I'll be honest, I am too, but… the second thing I know for sure is that there _is_ a solution to this and one way or another, I _will_ find it. You hear me?"

Her tear-filled eyes met his and held his gaze for the longest time before swallowing, she nodded. It wasn't good enough for him though. He had to know she understood; had faith in him.

"You hear me?"

"All right," she whispered, and finally he smiled.

"That's my girl," he ran his hand gently over her hair, smoothing it back. "Now, first thing I'm going to do is take swabs, pinpoint th'exact nature of this. You know, you're a very special young lady, you—"

"I know," she suddenly sobbed as if she knew what he was about to say, and pulled herself off the pillows to grip his shoulder. "I have a gene radical… transcription is…"

She fell back, exhausted by the effort, and he murmured softly, trying to comfort her.

"Yes, I know, Jennifer. Transcription is possible between your cells and those of a Wraith, and that's what I think we're dealing with here. Accidental transcription triggered by exposure to Wraith reproductive cells when Todd… aye well… the point is if transcription is occurring, it's why the NRTIs are helping. It's not exactly the action of a retrovirus we're combating here, and if I can find a way to introduce an agent that will render that particular radical in you dormant, then your own immune system will attack the alien cells and you'll start to feel better. But I need you to trust me."

"I do, Carson," she told him quietly, turning partly onto her side to all but curl up around his hand that held hers. "I trust you."

"I promise you, sweetheart," he murmured softly, "I'll do everything in my power to make sure I get you through this."

He closed his eyes and sighed, the memory of a mocking laughter echoing through his mind. What if his promise wasn't enough? What if he truly _had_ to take a step back across that line, and enlist the help of a more accomplished geneticist – the only one he knew?

And at what cost would that assistance be acquired?

* * *

The importance of standing in his own quarters aboard the newly grown Hive paled by comparison to that of watching as he circled step by measured step around his servant as she stood, visibly trembling, in his presence.

He could almost see the feelings passing through her body; smell the mixed emotions, all of them strong and full of trepidation, which she gave off, waiting for him to speak.

Passing behind her he reached out a hand toward her hair, the touch falling just short as he exhaled long and slow, almost a growling sigh as he finally spoke, his voice was tight with his own, barely controlled turmoil.

"Tell me."

"It… I…" she stammered, dragging out the word, and he could see her trembling increasing as she tried to speak. "Please… understand, Lord, that I did not intend for it to happen… any of it."

Circling round to the front he came to a halt at last, fixing her with the piercing searchlight of his gaze.

"What… did you do?" he asked, and when she had not spoken for many seconds he lashed out, grabbed her hair in his fist and hauled her closer, pulling back her head to force her to raise her averted gaze to meet his. With her virtually in the circle of his arms he demanded urgently, "Damn you, Isla, answer me!"

"I killed a Wraith."

Her answer, soft and fearfully spoken, chilled his heated blood in an instant; weighed his limbs with heavy dread and his touch fell away from her, as his own anguish at her words gripped him. She had been returned to him; he had been granted mercy by an unmerciful universe only to have that clemency denied to him in the worst of ways. She had committed the one unforgivable act that _any_ worshipper could perpetrate and now _he_, and not fate, must be the one to enact justice upon her. Growling out his despair he began to turn from her.

"It was an accident," she implored, her hands closing around his forearm. "I did not mean—"

Whirling back to face her, his despair superheated to anger, he cut her off, the back of his hand, as he freed himself from her grasp, connecting with the underside of her jaw so hard that he lifted her from her feet and sent her, airborne, across the length of his quarters, to crumple into a weeping mess at the base of the far wall.

"He was injured when we made planet fall. He tried to feed on me but I ran… I ran because I knew I must survive – return to you, and when he pursued, I fought and he fell and—"

Her rapid, panicked explanation did nothing to calm his anger as he followed her path, earthbound across the quarters to throw himself to one knee at her side, his left hand curled once more into her hair to pull her upright, to present her to his already mantled feeding hand.

"Anything!" he roared, "I could have forgiven _anything_ but this!"

"I only pushed… and he fell," she gasped. "Survive…!"

His feeding hand descended in a rapid unerring line toward her sternum, each painful inch he moved stealing year upon year of darkening memory, replacing every one with a hot agony of regret.

"There was a voice!" she screamed.

_::heshamae hensuus::_

He froze as the words and the image; the impression of falling water, frothy with the white of life, filled his senses… rolling over him, an absentee caress, regretful and sorrowing, lonely. His hand halted barely a wisp away from Isla's beating heart.

"_Survive_, it said," Isla wept. "_Survive._"

Trembling he curled his feeding hand into a fist and closed his eyes.

"Get out," the words came from him in a whispered rush, as he let go of her again. "Get out of my sight!"

He heard her, amid her sobbing breaths, scrambling to obey, felt the air beside him move as she practically crawled away from him, before she found her feet and her footsteps rang across the deck as she traversed his quarters toward the door.

_::heshamae hensuus::_

"Isla," he called her name, his head still bowed, and he both heard and felt her stop.

Slowly, still trembling, he drew himself up from his kneeling, almost prayerful attitude, and wordlessly crossed to take his servant one last time into his arms. She leaned backwards into his embrace as he bowed forward to enfold her in himself; grazed the side of her jaw with the light nipping of his teeth and the almost tender brush of his lips. He closed his eyes as the regret and sorrow swept over him, overwhelming, until he was drowning in it.

"Find for me a servant worthy of my trust," he whispered against her ear. "Send her to me."

Abruptly he released her and turned away, his eyes finding the almost painful stab of darkness, of the lightlessness outside the portal through which he stared, and as the door hissed closed behind Isla, and unique and ancient among Wraith, Malcolm reached up to his face and wiped away the lone tear that tracked toward his heart.

* * *

Sheppard felt as though someone were using pure light to drill a hole in the back of his head through his eyes. His head pounded, and weighed so heavily that it took both his hands – his elbows planted firmly on the table in _Daedalus' _mess – to hold it up. He barely looked up as Caldwell came to a stop at his side.

"Sheppard," Caldwell said, pausing for breath into which Sheppard murmured his soft protest.

"I know what you're going to say, Steven, and the answer's no."

The studs on the other man's jump suit scraped along the moulded plastic of the seat opposite as Caldwell slipped into it. Sheppard looked up at him.

"It's been almost twelve hours since we had to withdraw, John, and according to all of our sensor readings it's a stand-off out there. The Wraith… Michael's people… we've all withdrawn to a safer part of the system; drawn our lines in the metaphorical sand."

"Which means there's something here worth fighting over, Colonel," Sheppard argued, "and I'm telling you, it has something to do with whatever it is Michael's people are protecting."

"That's as may be," Caldwell agreed, "but we're in no position to stick around and make an assay. We've lost hyperdrive, the shields are shot to hell," he sighed heavily, a sigh that Sheppard echoed, "if any one of those bastards out there decides to make a run at us, we're finished. If something happens to break this deadlock… we can't fight for two days straight and then—"

"His people are out there," Sheppard asserted, "which means that Teyla's baby is out there, or if not, they can lead me to him. I'm not giving up on this, Steven. We've faced greater odds than this before, and—"

"And what now?" Caldwell asked, and the sarcasm in his voice was thick and heavy. "Trust to blind luck again. We can't do it, Sheppard. We've done what repairs we can without resources. We need to get back to Atlantis."

"No."

"Sheppard…" Caldwell started.

Finally shaking off the weight of depression filling him with an apathy, Sheppard snapped, "How long do you think it would take you to get _Daedalus_ back to Atlantis without hyperdrive?"

"That's not the point."

"That's precisely the point," Sheppard said. "If you must find a safer position, then take the ship just beyond the edge of the system, find a place to set down, or… or a planet to shield you from detection… McKay can get the hyperdrive back online and—"

"And you'll do what, exactly?" Caldwell asked, and Sheppard saw his eyes narrow in suspicion. "You can't take a ship out there, you'll be blown to pieces just like the other 302s we've tried to send out to scout the system."

"I won't take a 302. I'll take a cloaked Jumper and—"

"And go where? There are over nine planetary bodies out there," Caldwell said, his voice rising once more.

"And I'll search every single one of them if I have to but I'm not about to give up. I…" Sheppard trailed off, then sighed, and said, "Listen, Steven, I made a promise to Teyla… to her memory. I have to do this."

Caldwell sighed.

"Marks has identified a likely blind spot we could use as a hiding place," he said at last, "But it won't keep us hidden forever, Sheppard. I'll give you ten hours… ten…" Sheppard nodded, sitting up straighter, a surge of hope infusing him with an energy he didn't have in the moments before. "After that, hyperdrive or no hyperdrive, we're leaving, even if it takes us weeks to reach the nearest planet with a Stargate."

"Ten hours," Sheppard said, starting to get up. "And if I don't find anything by then—"

"Sheppard?" McKay's urgent sounding voice came from the doorway to the mess. Both Sheppard and Caldwell turned his way. "I've been going over the sensor data from before the battles, and there… I think there's something you should see. I think I may have found what everyone is looking for."

* * *

"All systems and stations report ready."

Malcolm tuned out the voices announcing the Hive's readiness for launch. He did not need them. He could feel the potential in the connection with the semi-sentient neural network; from the very air around him as he fell into partial communion with the Hive, and couldn't help but wonder if the so-called commander of the Queen's Hive could likewise feel the pulse of the ship.

He doubted it, for when he felt the Queen reach the entrance to the bridge Malcolm had already turned and swept himself into a low bow, while the commander, taken completely unawares until it was far too late, fumbled to turn and show obeisance to his Queen.

"My Queen," the commander said softly from his half stoop.

"Report," she snapped, and even before he felt the touch of her mind within his, Malcolm knew that the commander's failure had not gone unnoticed.

_=you have done well, my Second=_

Although not craving recognition for his part in selecting the personnel and materials used in the creation of the Hive, he could not help but feel gratified that his work had been appreciated. In spite of the rush of pride at the praise from the Queen, he tempered his emotions and responded with more humility than he felt.

_{the Hive is at your service, My Queen}_

"We are increasing main power and are ready for launch," the commander answered the Queen's question, glancing up from his lowered head. "I have taken the liberty of laying in a course for—"

"No!"

The Queen's voice, ringing out like a gunshot across the bridge startled Malcolm, and rising from his bow, he took a step toward her as he could see that the commander was likewise discomfited with her visceral response.

"My Queen?" the commander questioned softly.

"Arrogant fool!" she snapped, and from the mental connection they still shared, Malcolm gleaned that she had read the Hive's programmed destination from the commander even before he had spoken it: a small world on the edge of a far flung system, admittedly one of their feeding grounds, but far from the centre of their current conflicts.

She glanced at him then and Malcolm knew she expected him to be the one to correct the errant commander. With some hesitancy, not wishing to further inflame the tensions between himself and the commander, and with a nod of deference to the Queen, Malcolm spoke.

"We should make ready to follow the cruisers in pursuit of the Abomination's ship," he said.

The commander glared at him and in a voice laced with overly didactic patience, spoke as if to a mere hatchling. "Protocol demands that we cull in order to regain our strength and further strengthen the new Hive."

"Protocol has rarely won battles, Hive Commander," Malcolm said and, provoked and unable to resist his growing irritation, tilted his head as he added, "besides, advanced telemetry indicates that there are a number of inhabited worlds in that system. We will be as well compensated by culling there as light years away from where we need to be in order to continue our Queen's objective of wiping out the Abomination's forces."

_=have a care, Hive Second=_

The Queen's warning came as another surprise to him, after all, she had been the one to encourage him to speak out against the hive commander. He masked his surprise in another low obeisance to the Queen and was drawing breath to speak again; attempt to smooth over the ruffled feathers of the strutting cock that was fast becoming another of his enemies when the harshness of the commander's mind thrust upon his own.

_((I will finish you… finish you… finish you… you and that little bitch you call your servant… servant… servant…))_

Malcolm growled softly in response to the threat, turning toward the commander and straightening again, flexing his hands at his side, until the Queen's mental touch came again, softly, almost sensually against his mind – seductive.

_=now is not the time. Wait… wait… wait… wait… wait…=_

Aloud she ordered, "Set a course in pursuit of the enemy Hive."

With a final low bow to the Queen, Malcolm mentally adjusted the Hive's destination coordinates, even as the ineffectual commander turned to the console to do so manually, tilting his head in challenge once more when the commander turned back to impale him on a dangerous stare.

* * *

a/n - not a fan of horizontal lines as scene breaks, but yet again, FF is taking out all my asterisks, so they'll have to do.


	2. Act 2

**Stargate Atlantis**

Crossing Lines

_To make it home, sometimes you have to go too far._

Act 2

The rain, relentless on the back of his neck that was exposed by his bowed head, did little to cool the fire blazing through Ronon's body. Sheer determination was the only thing holding him upright; keeping his feet shuffling through the mud, ploughing furrows of despair behind him that even a child among rangers could have followed with their eyes closed. He did not care. He did not even notice. Such was his delirium that even the single focus on reaching his destination, at times, slipped from his conscious awareness.

One thought kept him driven; kept him moving. _Teyla_.

Someone that cared deserved to know of her passing, could join him in grieving for her the way she should be grieved; give her the honour that should be given. She had been a leader after all, and it did not register that it should have been to her people that his efforts carried him. He should have gone to Halling and the other Athosians.

Why then was he before the silent house, with its closed shutters, and the solid door that was no doubt as barred as the windows?

He all but fell against the door, pushing at the unyielding surface with what remained of his strength until his knees buckled, and the torrent that fell from the low, grey clouds faded at the edges of his sight. He growled his last protest of denial.

They would not take this from him. He would not allow it.

* * *

"It's a ball of rock, McKay," Sheppard said as he looked more closely at the telemetry data McKay had uploaded to the Jumper's system.

"It is _now_," McKay answered, then shook his head, "but look at the atmospheric readings. That can only be the residual effects of a massive barrage of weapons' fire. We've seen these kinds of results before – Hoff for instance."

"You think the Wraith did this?" Sheppard asked, and drew his gaze away from the HUD to look at the darkened ball of the planet they were slowly approaching. It did not look any more inviting in reality than it did on the computer simulation.

"Either the Wraith, or Michael," McKay said dismissively, "and either way it amounts to the same thing. Look, the placement of the planet in the system, its size and distance from the sun, it _should_ look similar to what we'd see of Earth from this distance, but look at it, Sheppard. Someone did a real number on this planet, and the big question is, why?"

Sheppard frowned. Something still wasn't adding up; was niggling in the back of his mind with a kind of warning that made him loathe to take the Jumper any closer. The real-time sensor readings he was pulling off the Jumper's systems indicated use of artificial or generated power, no significant levels of technology – hardly any readings of life at all.

"If what you're saying is true, Rodney, then why bother to come back here. If either Michael or the Wraith destroyed this place, why—"

A shrill warning sounded from the Jumper's proximity sensors, and instinctively, Sheppard's thoughts guided the cloaked craft through a series of avoidance manoeuvres. Their sudden sharpness almost threw McKay from his seat, and Sheppard murmured an apology as he glanced at the Canadian scientist, who had braced himself awkwardly against the forward console. Seconds later, the lone Dart screamed over them from stern to bow, buffeting them in the heat of its propulsion wake.

"Ordinarily this would be where I sarcastically point out that I told you so," McKay whimpered from his precarious perch.

"No need, Rodney," Sheppard answered lazily. He was already plotting a course that would follow the Wraith Dart down to the surface of the planet. "Let's go take a look at what's so all fire interesting down there, hmm? Hang on."

"Like I wasn't already," McKay whined.

* * *

_"Michael…" she made a small, soft whimper as she felt the sharpness in her arm – wanted to turn her head to see what he was doing; felt his hands on her elbow, but somehow couldn't move… could barely breathe._

_-rest-_

_His voice possessed her… in mind as well as in body._

_-you are perfectly safe- -safe- -safe- -safe- -safe-_

Teyla shifted in her sleep, her face creased into a frown, and her breathing quickened. The reverie tugged at the edges of her conscious awareness, blurring the line between reality and dream – between dream and memory…

_Teyla gasped as the wave of shared pleasure washed over her and transcended both the physical and mental… the emotional, and left breathless by the sobbing ecstasy that wracked her frame, she clutched him to her, wound tightly into the unity by the tremor of his body against hers as his surrender slowed, and spent, he lowered his head to her shoulder, breathing hard, and the final wave of her own release broke over her._

She cried out softly, half sitting up as she woke, her body trembling. Her heartbeat thumped through her small frame and her blood, the song of tumultuous waves resounded in her ears; was deafening in the near silence of the room.

She lay back and covered her face with her shaking hands, whispering his name into the darkness as the slick, sweat-sheen over her body slowly cooled her. She did not need to reach for him to know that he was no longer at her side. None-the-less, uncovering her face, she slipped her hand into the empty space beside her, as if her fingertips could gather the essence of him, still lingering in the sweetness of his scent caught within the bedclothes.

A languid pleasure that blanketed her drew back to settle heavily within her core, still pulsating with the remembrance of fulfilment. She turned onto her side, facing the place where he had been, and drew up her knees as the heat of tears began to gather in her eyes; contradiction threatening to break her in two.

_He slowly began to walk around her. She turned to keep him in view._

_"We never stopped being enemies," he said, and she thought she heard disappointment in his voice._

_"What will you do with me? Feed on me?" she demanded, fighting harder to keep the trembling inside of her from showing, from affecting any part of her that he would see. "Is that why you brought me all this way?"_

_He looked away, refusing to meet her gaze, and fighting to keep his breathing under control._

When did it stop? When did everything change and turn her animosity into acquiescence to the growing connection she felt with him… into affection.

_"The last time I saw you, I really was going to feed on you."_

_She frowned, his open admission taking her somewhat by surprise. She had expected sophistry, a web of lies meant to confound her, awaken her compassion; draw her to side with him in whatever his intent for the meeting. Yet he stood, leaning slightly on the medical bed that had been his, calmly confessing his motivation. It made her profoundly uncomfortable._

_"But it was not a matter of choice. It was… instinct."_

Was that then what she had become? A slave to instinct… or was the reverse true? Had she, as he had insisted to her once, overcome the instinct that defined her and opened herself to the possibility that not all was as she had believed?

_"Michael… Let me be the one."_

_"No!" he cried, and it was almost as if an appeal against her quiet plea. "You cannot crave— This is madness!"_

_"Madness or not," she began, taking a step toward him._

_"I will not feed on you," he snarled._

On her insistence, however, he _had_ fed on her… and more…

The pleasure in her centre flared again as the memory of the rapture she had felt, and shared with him, joined as they were as he had bestowed the Gift of Life on her dying frame. Had he known how close she had come to death? Did that pain haunt him also? Had she hurt him again completely without intent?

She could not stop the sob that rose in response to the thought, nor to stop herself from caring… and yet, the memory of what she had done; had invited within the warmth and comfort of the bed she still occupied in an attempt to prolong the moments of their togetherness shook the very core of what she knew to be right, to be good. How could she have given herself to this?

Almost keening now, filled with a sudden self-loathing she threw herself from the reflected warmth of the mattress, stumbled on the covers which followed in disarray and barely had the strength to back away; looking in horror at where she had lain as if she could still see the physical stain of her own betrayal.

All that he had done…

_"He has my child, my __**son**__. He took my people, made them into… into __**things**__ to do his bidding; he— Hundreds of thousands of people are sick and __**dying**__ because of what he has done."_

…and yet she knew, she understood that they had driven him to all that he had done… The Athosians… all the hundreds of thousands of people infected with the Hoffan protein… the millions that would die in the war to come…

_"You know," Carson sighed then, continuing softly, "Your understanding, your empathy, your… compassion… it means a lot to him."_

"Not enough!" she sobbed, full of doubt and pain and anger, as if reaching for what comfort Carson's words could bring.

_"And there you are tearing yourself up wondering: how could I love such a monster? You and I both know there's more to it than that." _

She fell back, stumbled to sit heavily amid the spilled covers, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around herself, her hands over her ears as though to shut out the sounds of her own conscience – and the truth that even now fuelled the torrential agony that poured from her.

_"We're not that different, Teyla."_

She _did_ love him… and wracked with guilt and shame… and yet the longing – for his love; for _him_… but like this, in all that was to come, she knew it could not be allowed to go on.

She reached out; wrapped clawed hands around the sheets to draw them to her from the bed, and held them tightly in her arms as she rocked back and forth, her ragged cries coming from a throat already raw from sobbing.

* * *

The Dart's pilot looked behind him one last time before entering the small, run down building at the edge of the village almost, Sheppard thought, as if he knew he'd been followed.

Crouched in the lea of a fall of rocks from the flanking mountainside, Sheppard reached for McKay's wrist to encourage the man to tilt the life signs detector his way, so that he could see.

"It doesn't make sense," McKay hissed, as if they were close enough to be overheard. "There's nothing here."

"There's plenty here," Sheppard answered, nodding out toward the buildings. "Shelter, for one thing, and if these villagers used to be Michael's sympathisers, they might be… persuaded to divulge valuable Intel."

"You think that's likely, Sir?" one of the military officers that Caldwell had insisted Sheppard bring with him, asked quietly.

"What else could they be, Sergeant?" Sheppard asked. "That man knew exactly where he was going when he came down here. It wasn't some… blind run to get out of the battle."

"I'm just saying," the sergeant began, but McKay interrupted him before he could get any further.

"That _man_ in there," McKay said, gesturing with the life signs detector out toward the building. "Have you considered that he's most likely one of Michael's hybrid's and not a man at all… and that maybe there are more of them in there?"

"Relax, McKay," Sheppard tugged him back down, further into the shadow of the rocks. "Even if he is, or there are, there can't be more than…" he shrugged, and having no solid theory on which to base his estimate made a wild stab in the dark, "…half a dozen of them. We can take 'em."

"Half a do—" McKay spluttered, "Sheppard, there are a dozen buildings out there, I'm reading… fifty or more life signs on here. Even if only half of those are hybrids, we're outnumbered almost four to one…"

"What's your point?" Sheppard asked.

"My point?" McKay sounded as though he couldn't believe that Sheppard was asking. "My point is that we can't go in there, the six of us. We need to wait. Look, we know where they are. We can go back to the Daedalus, and come back with reinforcements; even the odds a little. If—"

"There's no time," he said.

"No time?" McKay yelped. "Sheppard, if—"

"Colonel Sheppard!" the sergeant interrupted his quiet argument with McKay. "Movement!"

Ignoring the Canadian's continued, spluttering protests, Sheppard cautiously peeked around the side of the rocks they were using as cover and a knot of warning intuition twisted in his belly as he watched the pilot from the Dart exit the building into which he'd gone. He brought with him three other men, and met with two others in the middle of the village.

Something about the way they conferred made him nervous; made him notice the almost furtive glances they each made before following the pilot toward a large, barnlike building at the far reaches of what passed for the village street.

"C'mon," he ordered as soon as the others were far enough away for them to slip from the rocks to the shadow of the nearest building. Instinct told him they should follow. Instinct also told him that it could be trouble, but irritatingly, refused to identify the particular brand into which he was leading his men on that occasion.

He dismissed the niggling feelings of doubt and pushed on, knowing that the soldiers at his back would follow his orders and, in spite of the scientist's increased whining call for caution, he knew that McKay would follow as well… eventually.

* * *

Carson took a deep breath and wiped his perspiring palms against the side of his scrubs, hoping that Woolsey, standing by his side as they awaited the establishment of the wormhole, would not notice his nervousness.

He had no reason to be nervous, nor could truly understand why he was. The woman he awaited was a friend, they'd shared a lot together and had remained in contact through almost the first two years of his tenure in the Pegasus Galaxy… and then, with no warning, communication between them stopped. There had been nothing to indicate that anything he'd said had in any way offended her, he had simply never heard from her again.

"I must say," Woolsey cut in on his uncomfortable thoughts, "whilst I'm… relieved that you finally decided to replace those losses we've suffered on the medical team, I find your choice of replacement for Doctor Keller to be… surprising."

Carson's nervousness evaporated to be replaced by anger at Woolsey's glib and obviously probing tones.

"First of all," he snapped, looking over at the other man, "she's not, in any way, a _replacement_ for Jennifer. She's a brilliant physician, and probably a better scientist than either myself or Doctor Keller. I simply thought that under the current circumstances in the Pegasus Galaxy, Atlantis needs her expertise."

Carson couldn't help but worry over how _much_ they needed her right now; how much _he_ needed her help in trying to find a way to help Jennifer. He only hoped that Woolsey wouldn't question his motives too much.

"And come to that," he said to cover his obvious agitation, "she was always my first choice of primary physician for the expedition."

"Only she turned you down," Woolsey said, and the smug overtones in both his voice and his expression stirred a bigger nest of worry in Carson's gut. "I've read her file, by the way. It makes very interesting reading, and makes me wonder, actually, whether _you_ have."

The chevrons on the Gate began, one by one, to light up as they locked, and Woolsey took a step forward to await the arrival of the new expedition personnel. The unease in Carson's belly blossomed into fully fledged chill, and without thinking he reached to grasp Woolsey's arm, pulling the other man to a halt.

"Just what's _that_ supposed to mean?" he snapped, glaring at the base commander. "Doctor Haddad and I are old friends; I don't _need_ to read her file."

"Then tell me, Doctor Beckett," Woolsey said, raising an eyebrow. "Where has she _been_ for the last two and a half years, since her sudden resignation from the SGC?"

The whooshing of the incoming wormhole hitting the shield concealed Carson's outward rush of shocked, dismayed breath. Resigned? Had _that_ been why their communications had suddenly ceased, and not any one of the imagined reasons for which he had soundly blamed himself?

"For what it's worth, Doctor," Woolsey finished, shaking off the weakened grasp that Beckett had on his arm, "I agree with your assessment of the woman. She's a brilliant doctor, an outstanding scientist – unparalleled in the field of genetics and non-theoretical exobiology, which, considering her background…"

Woolsey left the rest of the sentence hanging, and Beckett hated him for it, doubly so when the man pressed a thick security sealed folder into his hands.

"You might want to become… reacquainted with your friend before you… become too wrapped up in your work to appreciate the need for… caution," he said, mildly enough, but the implied threat was still present.

"Stable wormhole established. Stargate Command requests permission to start sending equipment and personnel," Banks' voice sounded efficiently from the Control Room, preventing Carson from giving any answer, but his mind, his emotions reeled from the revelations Woolsey was pressing on him, unbalancing him, and tipping him from the position of strength he had sought to demonstrate.

"Lower the shield," Woolsey ordered. In the next moment the background hum of the shields ceased.

* * *

Inconsolable anguish had given way to a crushing, numb misery.

Isla barely noticed that half of the Lower Station fell into a frightened hush, only that the other half of the worshipper populace increasingly began to indulge in fervent whispers, spreading news of her dismissal, and likely its cause like a creeping cancer through the Hive. It would only be a matter of time before the Wraith began to listen to the discord among their followers. When they did, whispers would be the least of her concerns.

She lowered her head and hurried across the open space in the centre of the common area, and pulled up short as she almost collided with a Handler crossing chamber toward the exit. She mumbled an apology and moved to step out of his way and continue on her own, but he stepped with her, continuing to block her path.

"Perhaps you should… keep yourself to yourself, little girl," he hissed, tipping his head in mimicry of their masters.

Long since past the futility of insisting on the accidental nature of her crime, she moved to push past him, ignoring his jibe, wanting nothing other than to reach the shadowed corner of the chamber where she could allow herself to descend into her unyielding grief.

A sharp pain in her shoulder pulled her to a halt as he grasped her arm to prevent her from leaving.

"I said—"

"Let me go!" she snarled, twisting one way and then another.

"Or?" he mocked, "The one you sheltered behind isn't exactly going to come to your rescue this time, given what you did and _we_ don't want the trouble you bring, so…"

Abruptly he let go of her arm, and with only another hiss into her face he turned and marched away. Isla turned first one way and then another, searching for the cause of his sudden change of intent, but whatever it was – whoever it was – had vanished.

Far from comforted by her sudden reprieve, Isla wrapped her arms around herself and hurried on her own way toward the solace of her shadows, where only her misery would torment her. She threw herself into the darkest of them, lowered her head to the tops of her drawn up knees, and wished she could weep.

"Were you thinking that by not eating, you would stop them from wanting to feed on you?" The voice that spoke was gentle, and the concern in the words that could otherwise have been sarcastic and harsh, only filled Isla with more loneliness and longing.

"I'm not h-hungry," she answered, barely lifting her head.

The warmth of a soft hand pressed against her shoulder, and a woman lowered herself to her side. This time, Isla raised her head, and looked on the one that held a steaming bowl of food out to her. The scent of it pulled at the gnawing, empty ache inside her belly.

"You must eat, Isla," the woman said. "It has been days."

Isla frowned, taking longer than she would have thought to recognise the concerned face of one of the Queen's handmaidens looking at her earnestly. In spite of the woman's obvious concern, she couldn't help the suspicion that flooded her heart.

"What do _you_ care?" she asked, but her sorrow blunted the venom in her tone.

"I know that you feel great sorrow because of your situation, and in your place I would feel the same," the handmaiden said, "but search your heart, Isla. You have to know this is a temporary situation – a setback and not the end."

Isla snorted with humourless laughter. "You do _know_ what I have done, yes?"

"I know that you have killed a Wraith," the handmaiden said, pushing the bowl against her outstretched hands, and closing her fingers around it. In spite of herself, the scent of the food and the warmth of the bowl and her desperate hunger all met in the moment she lifted a single morsel of food to her mouth. "I know that it was by accident that you did it, that you are blameless."

"I only pushed him," she said around the next mouthful of food, eating as though she were a starving, frightened animal. "He fell."

"I believe you," the handmaiden said, "and so does he, otherwise he would have killed you without a thought. You know I'm telling you the truth."

"I don't know your name," Isla said, finally slowing in her eating, "but I know who you are. You're one of the Queen's handmaidens. How do you presume to know the Second's thoughts?" Hope flared inside of her for a moment and she asked, "Did he send you?"

"No," the woman said, "but I came anyway. My name is Jethera. I know him only in as much as once or twice the Queen has ordered that I tend him in her presence."

A knotted twist of conflicting emotions rose inside Isla at Jethera's words: jealousy, hope, confusion, resignation, desire and fear, all pressed into a sharp point that speared at her gut.

"He sent me away," she said, and tears came to her already sore eyes. "He ordered that I find him another to tend him, and even in _that_ I will fail… because all here will not so much as _look_ at me, let alone speak. I—"

"I can help," Jethera interrupted softly. "There is a girl known to me, who—"

"No!" Isla yelped, and more quietly repeated her denial, suddenly gripping Jethera's hands in panic. "No, it cannot be just _anyone_. It must be someone he will tolerate. She _must_ understand…"

"She is a good, purebred worshipper," Jethera interjected, but did not break the flow of words coming from Isla.

"…You! You must do it," she finished.

"Isla, I cannot," Jethera said slowly, shaking her head. "I serve the Queen. She—"

"Please, Jethera," Isla grasped her hands. "You _could_ do it, do both. I can't fail him again. I can't, he—"

"I… cannot," Jethera stammered slightly, and tried to free her hand, her eyes glazing as if in memory. "My loyalty must remain to the Queen."

"Please…" Isla whispered. "Please."

* * *

The first few people to emerge from the Gate were porters carrying equipment boxes. It made Carson nervous. Under normal circumstances personnel would precede the porters, and that they hadn't in this case raised the hackles on the back of his neck. It was nothing compared with the following moments, and he had to force himself to stillness as Doctor Haddad stepped from the gate, flanked closely by a pair of SOs that were clearly not there for her protection.

Carson watched, the frown deepening on his face as they led her to stand before Woolsey, only then, at his nod, did they take a step away from her.

"Doctor Haddad," Woolsey said, his tone light enough, though Carson thought he detected the lingering hint of smugness in his voice. "Welcome to Atlantis."

Carson almost held his breath, waiting for her to speak, and couldn't help but look her over as she stood almost within arm's reach. She was dressed in a simple outfit, a long, deep blue dress that buttoned at the front and under which a pair of crisply pressed black pants covered her slender legs. Her head was covered by a matching blue scarf that trailed down over her shoulders and framed her warm, olive-toned face. She looked tired, and her hands, which she had clasped in front of her, shook slightly.

As though she saw him looking at her hands, in a manner that screamed of self-consciousness, she tugged at the long sleeves of her dress, pulling them further down over her arms, and focussed her attention on Woolsey.

"Shukran, Mister Woolsey," she said, her soft, accented voice just as Carson remembered it, except for the barely hidden note of fatigue it carried. "Thank you."

"I expect you'd like to get settled into your quarters, and find your bearings," he said, "I can have your things sent to join you shortly."

"Actually, Sir, I should like to get acquainted with the medical and laboratory facilities," she said, shaking her head slightly, "I can unpack after I have finished working."

"Anxious to get started?" Woolsey asked, and a frown creased his face.

"I was led to believe that the situation was… urgent," she said, and glanced first at Carson, then at the two SOs still hovering too near for Beckett's liking.

"Very well," Woolsey said after what seemed to Carson to be an overlong pause. "I'll let Doctor Beckett fill you in on further details, and show you around."

She nodded her acknowledgement and then turned to face Carson. He tried to smile; to focus on the meeting he'd been anticipating, but his attention was held by Woolsey, who took that moment to finally dismiss the soldiers that had been guarding the young woman.

"Perhaps you would like to begin in the infirmary, Doctor?"

Carson jumped as she addressed him directly, somewhat discomforted by the formal tone in her voice.

"Of course, Doctor," he answered in kind. "Come this way."

She fell into step with him, barely making a sound as she moved. It had always surprised him how she managed that, without so much as the rustle of fabric, considering the layers she usually wore, but the momentum with which she moved told him that she wanted to be away from the Gate Room quickly. It was not until several minutes later, and much effort on his part to stifle his worried curiosity, that their steps slowed and her formality dropped away.

"So, you are going to read that, Carson?" she asked softly, nodding toward the file he carried under his arm. "I assume it is the dossier the SGC has kept concerning my movement."

Without a word, he offered the file to her, and she took it as though to do so would burn her.

"I'd prefer to hear what happened from you, Ayatesha," he said as she opened the folder, and glanced through its pages.

She sighed. "It is a very long story, sadiiqi," she said, "Long and not at all pleasant."

She shivered, and he did not press the issue. There would be time enough to exchange unpleasant stories, starting with the current problem.

"Either way, love, I'm glad you're here," he told her softly as they approached the infirmary. "You're my last hope with this."

She reached out then, uncharacteristically catching hold of his arm to draw him to a halt. She rarely initiated physical contact with anyone, and rarer still, allowed it from others. He looked at her hand on his arm, and then up into her eyes.

"Do not lie to me, Carson. Not you," she said earnestly. "I know you too well, and I fear that I am the one you wish will _spare_ you from your last hope."

* * *

The beaded braids in his hair rattled together as he swung his head to see who it was that had entered his quarters unbidden. He tensed, ready for any eventuality and could not help the relief that flooded him when he recognised the familiar footfalls of his body servant, though, he noted, she was not alone.

"My lord…" Her tone was hesitant, and brought into sharp focus the memory that he had banished her from his service. The thought flooded him with sadness. He turned and tilted his head in query, inviting her to continue. "I have brought to you one that will serve you in my stead."

He held his breath, trusting Isla to have selected well, but concerned that, with a finite number of people from whom to choose, the choice would not be as he would wish it. He was surprised – pleasantly so – when Jethera walked in behind Isla.

"The Queen's handmaiden?" he queried.

"My lord, She has Herself previously instructed that I see to your comfort," Jethera said, her tone clearly defensive of Isla. "Others of the hive do not possess sufficient… rank to be worthy of such a place as in your service."

He could not help but chuckle, but sadly as he saw Isla's face lowered to the floor. He walked toward her, slowly, his steps measured, his mind reaching to take, from her, her impression of the situation, of her place. It was with a greater stab of sorrow that he felt her hopelessness.

He reached for Isla; curled the fingers of his hand beneath her chin to raise her gaze from the floor.

_{it is well done} {well done} {well done}_

His words to her were no exaggeration. It _was_ well done. Having the Queen's handmaiden serving as his also would allow him to maintain a closer vigilance of the Queen than his position would otherwise allow. He was concerned for her, or more accurately, he corrected himself wryly, for the Hive under her current condition. Her Zenith drew increasing unrest and near madness to some of the fertile males of the Hive, and yet the Hive commander, who should long since have brought his unstable Queen to the fulfilment of it, failed in his duties; his responsibilities.

_{she will serve me well, Isla} {serve me well} {serve me well} {serve well}_

"If… there is nothing more, my lord," he heard the tremor in Isla's voice and it threatened to crush his resolve; to draw him into his own lapse of duty. He shook his head to banish the thoughts of clemency for this one from his mind.

"There is nothing," he said, his triple toned voice flattened almost into a single tone.

She stepped away from his touch, and he felt the tears gathering in her eyes as she turned away from him; felt their heat, and the heaviness that settled over her and inside of her before he could withdraw from the mental connection he had shared.

He closed his eyes, and listened to her walk away.

* * *

"Damn it!"

Beckett slammed his hand down on the laboratory bench as yet another cocktail of drugs failed to halt the degradation of the sample DNA. He sat up, away from the microscope, and rubbed his tired eyes, feeling as though time was slipping away from him again.

"I do not remember you being so violent before," Ayatesha's soft voice washed across the lab to settle cool hands against the back of his burning neck. He sighed and turned in the stool to face her.

"I really thought I had it this time," he said, trying to explain his outburst.

"You decided to try with the retrovirus again?" she asked, sitting up from her own microscope and turning to look at him. "Why? I thought you said it had been the least successful of all the treatments you have tried so far."

"Aye, I did," he nodded, "but then something you said earlier about the transcriptase inhibitors actually providing a bridge for the nucleosides to cross-link the way we saw them made me think that maybe, if I modified the action of the retrovirus to provide open base pairs for the polypeptide chains to anneal to instead of smothering the human DNA, we might actually be able to stop the cellular degradation. Then all we'd need to do would be to find an agent that would _remove_ the foreign chains, and…"

He shrugged and then sighed.

"Anyway, it's a moot point now. Just when I thought I saw a separation in the two strands of DNA it was like someone had flipped a switch, and the Wraith factors in the sample just started to completely overtake the human ones. Right back to square one!"

"Let me see." She stood up from her place and crossed the laboratory to him, stepping up close so that she could bend down over the microscope to examine the sample for herself. Even as close as she was to him, Carson managed to watch her as she worked. He couldn't help comparing her to himself; her ability to his – what he knew of her with what he saw.

Where the deadly puzzle frustrated him; terrified him if he were honest, it seemed to him that the impossibility of it in some strange way comforted Ayatesha, and yet… as he looked closer, he saw the tell tale signs of someone who was fighting to keep their own worry from showing. It was there in the tension in her back; in the way she gripped the control stick of the equipment just that little bit too tightly. He had never seen it before in her, not even in the most difficult of situations. Something had happened. Something had changed her.

"Y'tesha, can I ask you something?" he said softly.

"Now I know we are in trouble," she answered, chuckling, though without humour. "You have not called me that since long before you left for Atlantis." There was barely a pause before she added, "What do you consider to be the origins of this mutation?"

"I'm almost certain it was an accidental cross contamination between a modified version of the original retrovirus, and an attempt to find a protection or cure for the actions of the Hoffan protein, why?" He answered her question as best he could with the information he had gleaned from his conversations with McKay, and then with barely a breath between, asked, "What happened back at the SGC – why resign?"

She looked at him for a moment, and he felt as though he was being probed, his sincerity evaluated; whether or not he could be trusted, tested. She turned back to the microscope before speaking.

"Sometimes people ask for answers they do not really want to hear. Sometimes people ask for things which on the surface seem innocent enough, but which my conscience will not allow me to give…" she turned to look at him again, capturing his gaze in the sadness of hers.

_"Y'tesha, wait…" Carson caught her arm, pulling her to a halt and turning her to face him. The action was gentle, and as she turned he reached for her with the other hand, drawing her closer and leaning down to look earnestly into her still wet eyes. "I thought it was what you wanted. I… I don't understand why we can't—"_

_She stepped closer still, and laid a trembling hand across his lips to silence him._

_"Because I care too much for you to put you through all that would come of it," she told him in a softly broken voice. "It is enough to be your friend."_

"…and when I would not give it, censure was the least of my worries." She shook her head, and turned back to the microscope. "I ask because the imposition of the non-human RNA in the secondary sequences is not singularly linear as we have seen in the action of the retrovirus. What makes you so certain of your hypothesis?"

"Jennifer was working with a Wraith on both the problem of finding an immunity to the Hoffan protein, and at the same time attempting to stop Sheppard from turning into one of Michael's hybrids. Michael based his hybridisation program on my original retrovirus," he said.

"The one that made him human?"

"Yes." He reached over to the computer to call up recorded cell cultures taken from Major Lorne when he had first been returned to Atlantis. "Michael took our research and adapted it to allow for the creation of Wraith-Human hybrids. This is what they were combating in Sheppard. Look at the way the Wraith cells are dividing in Lorne's sample."

He gave her time to watch the progression of the hybridisation occurring in Lorne's culture, but he was burning with worried curiosity as to what had happened between Ayatesha and the SGC. Eventually he couldn't contain it any longer.

"Censure you for what? Is that why you resigned?" he asked.

"Resigned is an interesting way of putting what I did, but yes – I went… home." She frowned, and looking across at him again made another soft accusation. "There is something you are not telling me."

"Home as in Egypt, home?" Carson asked with a frown of his own. "I've told you everything I know, Y'tesha. I wouldn't keep anything from you. I never have and I don't intend to start now. Why?"

"Why did I go home? It was the only place I knew I could not be reached," she said. "How much do you want to avoid that last resort for which you brought me here to provide you with the chance of solace?"

"Believe me; I very much want to avoid that eventuality." He sighed then, and said, "They found you anyway, didn't they? The SGC I mean."

His frown deepened as she once more tugged on the sleeves of her dress, pulling them further down over her wrists. It was an unconscious gesture that she had no idea she was making. It almost made him want to reach out, pull them back and see what it was she was trying to hide… but as she had said, there were some questions to which you didn't want the answers, and the fears that were increasing as they progressed through both sides of their entwined conversation gave him to believe that this was one such time.

"The IOA found me, when they received your request for my assistance on Atlantis," she turned her back on the laboratory bench and faced him fully then. "I am sorry, but I do not believe that I will be able to help you avoid your fears after all."

"Please, Ayatesha," he shook his head, "I told you… I told you everything I know. I'm working to _save_ a life here, maybe more, I—"

She stepped toward him suddenly and slipped her fingers onto his lips to cut off his protest, and off balance, leaned against him as she did. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to reach out and support her; slip his arms around her waist.

"Mishitkallim," she whispered urgently in Arabic. She slipped her fingers from his lips, but did not pull far from his embrace. "Carson, it is not that I do not wish to help you, but that I do not believe that I _can._ While there is a similitude between the transcription in Doctor Keller's sample, and the one that you show me here, they are as different from one another as night and day."

"Y'tesha?" As he looked down at her, he swallowed hard, as he caught sight of her hands that lay on his chest, her wrists uncovered, and marred with deep tissue scarring that could only have come from handcuffs or worse…

She followed the direction of his gaze and stiffened, almost stumbling as she pulled away, turned and walked to put a greater distance between them.

"Now you know," she said flatly, keeping her stiff back turned to him.

Barely able to breathe, and chilled beyond anything he had experienced, even at Michael's hands, he forced himself to speak.

"I don't know what to say," he told her. "I'm sorry, I…"

His words trailed into silence as he pulled together the pieces that he knew; his mind rebelling against the growing understanding that what had happened to his friend had happened at the hands of any human agents. What could he say that would bring any sense of justice; any sense of comfort. Instead he did the only thing that his wounded sensibilities would allow. He breached the distance she had put between them and from behind wrapped his arms around her.

He expected her to fight, to free herself from his embrace, and she did not disappoint his expectations. Turning in his arms, she pushed at his chest, stepping back to the limits of her reach.

"Only say that you will forgive me, Carson."

"Of course, I—" he stammered. _That_ he had not expected. That she should ask forgiveness made no sense to him when set against what he imagined must have happened to her. He shook his head and told her, "There's nothing to forgive. You haven't done anything and—"

"You have delivered me from two years of hell, habibi, with what for you was a simple request for help, but I _cannot_ help you." She looked up at him, and reached for one of his hands, lifted it from her hip, and drew him back to the bench. There she activated the computer screen and pointed to the image that built slowly, line by line. "I want to, Carson, I do, but this has not been engineered. This has not happened at the behest of any man or Wraith. The architect of this design is Nature herself and though I suspect it will send you to a hell of your own. I am telling you: if you know of a scientist that can help your friend then you must go to him now, though I fear it is already too late."

* * *

Blindly following Sheppard was beginning to get old. Blindly following the new, improved, suicidal model of his friend was about as far from being McKay's idea of a good time as it was possible to get.

"Sheppard, what the hell are you—?"

He cut himself off, realising he was talking, once again, to empty air, as Sheppard and his military sidekicks huddled low as they scurried toward the barn. He watched them for more than a few moments, arguing with himself, trying to convince the loyal friend part of himself to listen to the strongly developed instinct he had for self defence which insisted that staying where he was, being ready to give Sheppard and the others cover against anyone or anything that might sneak up on them from behind was really the best option. He failed.

"Oh," he whined aloud, tightening his grip on the P90 that was slung across his chest. "This is so _stupid_!"

Before he could demoralise himself any further, he threw himself away from the cover of the low wall that sheltered him, and stumbling with the first few steps, followed the military contingent into the barn.

* * *

Sheppard moved his eyes across the vista in front of him, taking in the sight of the equipment laid out in the barn. That it wasn't farmyard equipment, courtesy of Mister Johnny Deer, came as no surprise to him.

"Bingo," he murmured under his breath. "Got you, you mass-murdering-son-of-a-bitch!"

Michael's hybrids, for that was who the men he had followed were now revealed to be, stood with their back to the entrance. They were moving around what looked to Sheppard to be some kind of laboratory, not unlike the one to which they had followed Teyla before the birth of her son. They were each working quickly and diligently at their tasks, some at computer consoles, and some at the concealed racks that lined the walls of the building, which from his vantage point seemed to Sheppard to be empty of figures – mercifully – for he knew, first hand, what happened to the humans placed inside their grim bunks.

Having no more time or patience for subtlety, Sheppard stepped out from behind the cover of the shadowed doorway and raising his weapon, lazily, to a position of half-readiness, he let out a shrill whistle. He could take these bastards with one hand tied behind his back.

"Maybe you guys can help me," he drawled as the first of the hybrids turned. "I think maybe I'm a little lost."

* * *

"Lord," Malcolm blinked in surprise as the queen's handmaiden addressed him without invitation. "I beg you: do not judge your servant harshly. What befell her was a matter of circumstance. She—"

"What know _you_ of the truth of it?" he snapped, unable to keep the emotion from his voice as he turned back to face the woman, spreading his arms in silent instruction for her to begin preparing him for rest.

To her credit, Jethera approached him without fear, reaching for the snaps at the wrist of his heavy leather coat, before turning her nimble fingers to the job of unfastening the ones at his collar.

"I am no blind fool," she told him. "I have seen the loyalty with which she serves you, and know its source must reach far beyond what passes for obedience among the shallow sycophants of my kind."

The bitterness in her voice startled him and he snapped his head back, to look at her, catching her wrist to prevent her for continuing with his disrobing. She gasped and tried to pull away, a futile action as he knew he could have broken her like the sweet sugar sticks the young of the Hive were often given as treats with but a single twitch of his fingers.

"You admire her," he surmised, tilting his head as he looked on the young woman.

"I pity her," she corrected him, the bitterness still clear in her voice, albeit tainted with sadness.

"Explain," he demanded, letting go of her, and shrugging off his now unfastened coat. He half turned to toss it toward the chair at the side of the room, but Jethera took it from his hands before he had the chance, and folded it carefully as she crossed to lay it in its place.

"She is one true voice in a chorus of liars," she said, "and people like her are punished for what they are, and will always be so. Despised by their own kind who fear the honesty of their desire, loathed by outsiders for a betrayal they never even made, and their masters, even as they reward their service, visit the heartbreak of longing upon them – a longing that will never be fulfilled."

Malcolm swallowed, and had no choice but to turn away, feeling as though his soul had been laid bare by the small woman who stood like a blood-covered dagger in his hand.

"You…are very brave to speak so candidly," he said, and cleared his throat, lowering himself to sit on the side of his bed, suddenly weary. "You may leave. I have no need of your services at this time."

Instead she crossed the room to him, and kneeling on the ground before him, took his hands and brought them to her lips.

"Please, my Lord," she implored him, "the Hive suffers. Take your rightful place. Cover Our Queen and bring us order again out of the weakness of her commander's madness."

Her hands around his trembled, and tears filled her eyes as he looked down on her, rolled from her cheek to drip onto his hand as he freed himself from her touch and in deepening curiosity, began to unfasten the ties on her high collared shift. She made no move to stop him.

Between the swell of her breasts there was no scarring. Not even the hint that any hand had ever fed, or given life marred the smoothness of her skin. He brushed his fingertips against the softness there as if in touch he could read her heart.

"I cannot," he told her softly, his eyes still fixed on the point at which the green and cream of their skin met. "For all that your position affords you a greater knowledge of the Hive, there is still much that you do not understand of the Wraith, or of my place here. I must ask you to endure."

"But why?" she pleaded and almost whispered the words she spoke as she pushed against his touch, beginning to rise. "You have it within your power to save all of us; to bring relief to this Hive; to—"

He rose with her, towered over her and caught her wrist again to prevent her from moving away. She shook her head as she looked up at him and continued her impassioned pleas.

"—to _save_ Isla," she said. "Why do your falter?"

"I. Must. Ask you. To. Endure," he repeated, allowing the hint of a fourth tone to touch her in the nuances of his carefully controlled voice.

_{both of you} {both of you} {you} {you} {you} {you} {you}_

In the touch of his mind to hers, he let the fourth tone weave a thought, an image of a scorched sky, hanging over the spires of a ruined city wherein Wraith stalked broken prey that crawled over the jagged remnants of their own arrogant disregard.

He did not move as she turned and fled the room.

* * *

McKay let out a high pitched yelp and threw himself into the corner of the barn behind a stack of cylinders, narrowly avoiding the blast from the stunner that went wide of Sheppard as the colonel dived for cover as the hybrids opened fire. Sheppard rolled as he went down, and came to one knee, his P90 already aiming for the hybrid on the walkway above that had let out the shot.

"Didn't it ever occur to you to check and see if there were more of them inside?" McKay screamed over at Sheppard, crawling on his elbows and knees deeper into the cover of the stacked equipment, somehow keeping his head covered.

Sheppard turned in answer. Raising his weapon again he let off another short burst of gunfire over McKay's head, and from above the dark shape of a fallen hybrid tumbled to land almost on top of McKay.

The scientist yelped again, scrambling backwards until his spine hit the building wall, watching in mounting dismay as more of Michael's mercenaries and hybrids came, seemingly from nowhere to join the escalating fire fight.

"McKay!"

At the urgent shout, McKay ducked to the side as the wall beside him fizzled with the decaying discharge of a stunner blast. He barely raised his weapon in time to let off an inexpertly aimed burst from his own weapon that left his fingers numb and tingling as the hybrid jerked in a macabre dance with each bullet that hit.

"We are _so_ screwed!" he moaned, opening his eyes again to see, even without an accurate count, how outnumbered they had suddenly become. He had to do something – and do it fast – if they were to stand any chance of getting out of there.

"_Rodney_," the radio sounding in his ear amid the gunfire made him jump, and for a moment the pressure in his bladder became almost unbearable and he feared he might lose control. "_Fall back to the rear of the barn… regroup at the exit there. Repeat: regroup at the rear exit of the barn._"

A sudden epiphany made him scramble forward – but not toward the rear wall of the barn. On desperate elbows and knees, McKay threw himself toward the console to the side of the centremost space of the barn. If he could use the technology to strengthen his radio signal, he should be able to raise the _Daedalus_, because without their help, he was sure they didn't stand a shadow of a chance for survival.

* * *

Michael straightened up from the preparation of the sample and slipped the vial into the machine that would provide him the tools for analysis. He stood back, watching the screen as the image built, as the falling Wraith characters whispered the facts of the contents and composition of her blood; her DNA.

He had seen, in her mind as they joined, that she had been through much since he had released her to Atlantis. They were supposed to keep her safe; protect her while he had been unable. They had failed. Worse than failure, their treatment of her… what they had done may well have caused her harm, at their hands, or at the hands of the Wraith, and now that she had returned to him, he had to be certain that this was not the case. He had to be sure that she was well.

A small, anguished cry trembled through the bond they shared and he stiffened, half turning from the monitor, his search set aside, as Teyla's mind reached for him caught between a longing and a confused loathing of her own actions.

He growled softly. Always such a dichotomy, such a fight within herself, then sighing he conceded that it was not so different from the war that had raged in him when first he had realised what she meant to him, but her distress caused him an almost physical pain, and he began to turn, to answer the summons she had not even known that she had made.

_-all is well- -well- -well- -well- -well- -trust- -trust- -trust- -trust- -trust-_

…_Michael…_

_-rest, Teyla- -rest- -rest- -rest- -rest- -rest-_

A single character string falling to its place in the analysis caught his attention as he moved to step away. He froze. A tighter band than the one caused at her distress tightened around him and he all but threw himself at the console, isolating what he had seen, bringing into sharp relief the combined and complex amino acid chain.

"This isn't possible," he breathed in an awed tone, though with a greater fear than he wanted to admit.

Without another word he snatched the crystal from the side of the machine on which the data was stored, and fighting to keep his breathing steady, turned and, all but collided with one of his lieutenants.

"Sir," the man was breathless, and Michael did not like the fearful sensations that began tightening in his belly at the man's demeanour.

"What is it?" he snapped.

"A group of armed men have infiltrated our compound in the south village," the man reported. "Our forces are holding but—"

"What!" Michael pushed past the lieutenant, his rapid steps carrying him to another bank of monitors at the far side of the laboratory. "Who are they? How did they get here?"

"We… do not know," the man hesitated, and Michael turned to him again, his eyes burned into the man, compelling him to continue. "They fight with automatic percussion weapons. We—"

Michael snarled. His barely contained fury was amplified by his concern for Teyla as well as for his work, his facilities here. There was only one possibility that came to him; one person that could have found him even as he sought to evade detection.

"Sheppard," he hissed, before turning back to the now active screen and issuing a string of rapid commands to his lieutenant. Just as quickly, Michael worked the computer console. "Activate the outer defences and secure _this_ facility. If Sheppard is here he will have brought others. Recall our cruisers – we're leaving."

Deactivating the terminal, and trusting his lieutenant to do as he had bidden, Michael turned and headed for the exit. He was intent on reaching Teyla. He had to keep her safe.

* * *

She hadn't realised that she'd left the protected depths of the facility until her hand brushed against the coldness of the rock that formed the walls, instead of the semi-organic material that it had been before. She decided she should not be surprised, for she had been wandering in the darkness for some time, searching for some way to understand; some way to decide what she should do next; how she should proceed.

A sudden burst of longing threatened to crush her resolve to find some end to the confusion, and voicing the distress she wrapped her arms across her belly from where it felt as if the need came. She wanted to deny him, and yet accepted the touch of his mind as a welcome solace.

_-all is well- -well- -well- -well- -well- -trust- -trust- -trust- -trust- -trust-_

…_Michael…_

_-rest, Teyla- -rest- -rest- -rest- -rest- -rest-_

Yet, she could not rest. She pushed away from the wall and continued on along the passageway, following an indistinct whisper that tugged her onward. The air around her grew cooler, as she pushed on until she sensed the space in front of her had opened up. From the echoes that accompanied her movement she could only guess that she must have entered some kind of cave. As her steps faltered with the uncertainty of the change, a low hum began to vibrate through her, and moments later, lights flickered into life.

A thin layer of dust lay over the benches that lined the laboratory that had been constructed there. The dust was stirred by a faint breeze that came from somewhere in the dim recess at the far side of the cavern and thin reflective sheets of fabric gave protection from the creeping dust to the pieces of equipment that stood, covered, around the room, some of which glowed dimly as though lit from within.

The faint sting of ozone pricked at her already sore eyes and another scent, an almost sweet metallic odour that made her already hesitant steps falter still more. Trembling, she tipped her head to the side, closing her eyes, and reached out toward the barely formed thoughts that called her onward none-the-less.

With a good deal of trepidation she reached out and grasped the cool material of one of the covers. Its delicate balance disturbed, it slipped easily from the glass tank it covered, bathing the area in the blue-green light that shone from within.

Teyla's hand shook where it had come to rest against the faintly warm glass as she looked on the figure that floated. Patches of blackened skin covered some of the figure's body, while in other areas, the faint green and veined colour of Wraith flesh showed the origins of this unfortunate individual. From the centre of its chest, where tube-like tendrils joined with its body, faint spirals of red-brown fluid hung lazily in the viscous fluid that surrounded the creature.

"Oh, Michael," she whispered. A heavy stone settled in her belly, as the pain of compassion descended on her and, turning from the container at her side, she peered further into the room, unconsciously counting the coverings she saw, her mind awash with dread as she imagined what she might find within their concealed tanks.

Slow steps took her onward, until she could grasp the second of the covers and pull it free. She recoiled in fright, and caught the bench behind her, sending glass tubes tumbling to shatter against the stone floor, and drawing a cry from her. As if sensing movement, the figure in the liquid thrashed against its confines, its face – almost all sharp, Wraith-like teeth, and sightless eyes, covered with scarred skin – straining to reach through the glass. At the side of its neck, gills flared, and sent a creeping, bubbling mist into the confining fluid.

Teyla turned away in fright, and stumbled against a third of the tanks, dislodging its cover and coming face to face with the creature within, a creature she had seen before, on the Taranan home world, but tangled in the falling sheet she stumbled to her knees, falling heavily, to lie winded at the base of the tank.

Deep concern swept over her in the moment before she felt hands close gently around her arms. She did not fight as Michael all bit lifted her to her feet, in fact she leaned against him, pressing her hands against his chest, craving his warmth; suddenly cold.

"You should not be out here," he said almost softly, his hands motionless against her upper arms. "It isn't safe."

"What _is_ this place?" she looked up at him, silently begging him to tell her.

"One of the laboratories where I have conducted much of the work for _The Cause_," he told her, and letting go because to move around her, to the console in the centre of the room and began almost urgently working the controls.

"But these creatures, they—"

"I have kept them alive so that I could… learn what was needed in order to succeed, if that is what you are wondering." She wrapped her arms around herself, turning to keep him in sight as he walked around the laboratory, uncovering the remaining three tanks, as the lights within the first three wavered and died. "You think me cruel."

She shook her head, but the nausea she felt in her gut belied the ambivalence she tried so hard to maintain. She felt a deepening of his concern, a sense of doubt, of fear that had not been there before.

"Something has changed, Michael," she told him of her suspicions, and saw him swallow, shift his gaze away from her. "Why will you not look at me?"

The fear she felt in him chilled, and she watched as it turned to anger in response to her challenge. She did not understand the sudden shift and it frightened her.

"Michael," she reached for him, but he turned on her, taking a step toward her, his posture and the tone he used when he spoke, full of menace.

"No, Teyla," he snarled at her, "I will not… will _not_ allow you to betray my trust. Not now."

* * *

"Colonel Caldwell?" Marks had turned a confused frown his way while still operating the touch screen of his comm. station.

"What is it, Major," Caldwell asked.

"That's just it, Sir," Marks said, "I'm not sure. We're receiving a signal, but it's faint. I can't quite make it out."

"Can't you re-route power to the antennae array?" he said.

"I've tried that, Sir. It's still weak." Marks answered.

"All right, let's hear what you've got."

"_…sis… ay. We nee… sance… R'…eat: need …ssi…ce… ay…day!_"

"Someone see if you can clear that up," Caldwell ordered, throwing his head half back to speak to the engineers behind his command chair.

"We're trying, Sir," one of the engineers answered, "but it's coming in on a slightly altered carrier wave, we—"

"_Mayday! We're pinned down. It's Michael's hybrids… Daedalus, we need assistance. If you can hear me, we need your help!_"

McKay's desperate voice suddenly split the static and flooded the bridge with the sounds of his panic.

"Status," Caldwell demanded, turning in his chair to face the engineers.

"I can give you maybe… forty per cent shields, but that's the limit, Sir," she said with a shake of her head. "But we'd have to take the aft cannons and the beaming technology off line to achieve that."

"Do it," he ordered, turning forward again. "Chances are, if we heard that, so did anyone else that might still be out there. Major Marks…"

"Sir?"

"Give me a course, best speed in there. Standby 302s for ground support." Caldwell sighed and squeezed his eyes. "We can at least give them covering fire; give them a chance of getting out on their own."

* * *

The Wraith commander looked up as his subordinate appeared at his side. He hissed at his underling, tilting his head in query.

"Repairs to the hyperdrive are complete. We are able to follow the fleet." The sub-commander said, dipping his head in respect.

The commander bared his teeth, snarling his approval, and with a mental push, commanded the Wraith controlling navigation to plot the course, and execute the jump. He leaned forward across his own console to peer at the falling characters on the telemetry display at the centre of the forward screen; making a last check before allowing his cruiser to begin the journey.

"Wait!" he ordered, pointing at a string of green characters that tumbled over the screen. "What is that?"

The sub-commander hurried forward, his confidence faltering and filling the bridge with the echo of his concern as he deciphered the complexities of the incoming telemetry. Before he could report, the Wraith at the forward tactical bridge console turned and spoke.

"Commander, a single ship has broken from the cover of a nearby planet. It is the humans, and they are headed for the system's second world."

"Scan it," the commander ordered.

"Energy readings, Commander. Faint – heavily shielded," the Wraith answered. "We might never have detected it, if not for the—"

"There is a signal," another Wraith broke in. "A… distress call."

"Audio," the commander snapped.

"_Michael's hybrids… Repeat: If you can hear me, Daedalus, we need your help…_"

"Follow them," moving away from his station, the commander hissed in triumph. "Let the humans lead us right _to_ the Abomination. Send a signal to the fleet. Recall them. Prepare our ground forces and prepare to launch the Darts. This is one time we will _not_ fail."

* * *

Teyla backed up a step in the face of Michael's anger. She reached out to him along their bond, and quickly realised, with growing dread, that he had closed off to her. Try as she might, she could not re-established the connection. What had she done to invite his anger? In her own mounting fear she lashed out.

"So you will what?" she demanded, "Force your will on me? Hold me prisoner until you have what you want and then kill m—!"

He raised his voice again, still angry, but his tone imploring, "I will not harm you, after everything that we have been through you _must_ see that!"

"No harm?" Teyla questioned, disbelief coloured her voice, even though she _did_ believe him. Words fell from her lips and she could not stop them, no matter how much she wanted to. Her own emotional turmoil clouded her actions. "You have practically broken me, Michael! Acted without regard to my discomfort; pay little heed to the needs of my—"

"Everything that I have done I did in order for you to survive!" he growled at her, taking another step toward her, and she backed up. "What would you rather? That I had left you on the Wraith Hive, to _die_ in the attack made by your so called friends? Friends who have constantly led you to danger, who even now—"

"Do not bring them into this. You are so quick to lay the blame elsewhere," Teyla snarled at him, rebelling against the truth in the words he spoke. "All this… all that has happened to me, this is your doing. You did this."

"You agreed to this." His voice, still raised and pained was almost desperate as he countered her. "You came with me willingly and I have done nothing that was not according to your will,"

He was barely a breath away from her and there was nowhere left for her to go, backed up, as she was, against the glass wall of one of the tanks.

"My will? I—"

Chaos exploded around her as the echoing sound of gunfire, deafening in the confines of the cave, tore into her argument with Michael and shattered the glass of the case behind her. Startled, she gave voice to the increase in terror as a splash of fluid lapped at her cheek, and let out a single scream and in the confusion could not tell which way to turn for safety.

Strong arms closed around her waist and she felt herself lifted, spun away from the flying glass and hot metal. The spin became a downward spiral and she landed heavily on the softness of a body, but before she had a moment to make sense of what had happened, she was rolled, and then pinned beneath the weight of Michael's leather clad body as he shielded her.

Around them, as she became able to make sense of the scene, she began to make out the sounds of running feet, the exchange of gunfire, the repeated whine of stunners and the rattle of automatic weapons. Michael's anger, his _fear_ suddenly made sense to her as she realised the bearers of those weapons.

Frantically she began to struggle against Michael's protective, though restraining grasp, calling out in desperation, "John!"


	3. Act 3

Stargate Atlantis

**Crossing Lines**

_To make it home, sometimes you have to go too far._

**Act 3**

Beckett's patient was quiet, for now. She was sedated and her eyes were closed, but her hands made little fists on the bedclothes, as if she had acquiesced unwillingly into the stupor of the drug-induced sleep and still fought to give some part of herself a way to remain in the conscious world.

Moving silently, Varnerin took the folder from the pocket at the foot of the bed and flicked open the cover, letting his eyes leave Doctor Keller at last, and run over the printed and written text he now held in his hands. He searched the file for clues; anything that would give him knowledge of the truth, of another strand in the complex and twisted lives of the people of the Atlantis Expedition.

If he could find just one more instance of questionable actions on the part of its personnel…

"Patient files are confidential, Professor," the raw, broken tones of Keller's voice made him jump – sounding just enough like the hissing tones with which the Wraith queen had addressed him that his eyes snapped up to ensure himself that it was in fact Doctor Keller that had spoken.

In an attempt to cover his own discomfiture he smiled tightly and said, "I didn't mean to disturb you, Doctor Keller. How are you feeling?"

"Like you care," Keller rasped, coughing slightly. "Whatever you're trying to do here, Varnerin, whatever you're looking for—"

"I'm not trying to do anything, Doctor," he answered mildly and set the file down on the edge of her bed. He stepped closer as she began trying to pull herself into a sitting position. "Though I will confess, I find it more than a little disconcerting that the actions of many on this base are strongly suggestive of … how shall I put it?"

"Get to the point," Keller hissed, reaching for the call switch on the bed's hand controls.

"Highly questionable morals," he answered closing his hand around her wrist and squeezing hard to paralyse her fingers. "First Ms Emmagan, now you… what's the cliché – sleeping with the enemy?"

"Fuck you!" Keller struggled against his grasp.

"Just what _is_ your relationship with that particular Wraith, Doctor Keller?" he pressed, glancing at the file, "scheduling a rather personal surgical procedure, repeated testing – genetic profiling and Doctor Beckett's—"

"Carson!" Keller began to call out. She abandoned her efforts to reach the call button and drowned out his words with her cries. "Carson…! Anybody!"

"Just how close _are_ you? What did you _do_ aboard his Hive?" He leaned closer, leaning over her as she shrank away from him, pinned both wrists to the bed, forcing her to look at him. "Sooner or later someone is going to figure it out, Ms Keller…"

"Let me go!" she snarled into his face, and then turning her head aside cried out for help again.

"…and when they do—"

In their struggles, she managed to slip free of the grasp he had on her right hand, as he leaned across from her left side. He had underestimated her desperation, and certainly did not anticipate the speed with which she struck.

At first he thought she had somehow managed to get a hand to some kind of medical equipment – a scalpel or other metal object, as stinging pain descended from where her fingernails connected with his cheek and raked painfully down the side of his neck. The shock of her sudden attack made him pull away, let go of her completely, and for a moment she flailed in the bed as though falling, her right hand coming away from his neck wet with his blood where she had scratched him.

Before he could move away, she made a growling cry as if in some great pain, and he felt as though she had punched him. The breath left him as her hand connected with his chest, pushing at him for just a moment, before she dug in her fingers and grasped hold of skin and shirt alike. She tried to pull him closer, as her back stiffened, her head fell back, and her eyes began to roll back into her head. Her breathing became suddenly laboured.

At the same time the shrill cry of alarms began to fill the infirmary, and the sound of running attendant feet heralded the arrival of the medical team. He felt himself pushed aside, and barely heard Doctor Beckett.

"Thank you, Professor, we'll take it from here," as he stumbled back, withdrew; turning amid the chaos, he wanted nothing more than to be away from there… and began wondering what in the hell had just happened.

* * *

"Easy now, Jennifer," Carson closed a firm but gentle hand around her flailing wrist, and with Marie on the other side began to lower Keller back to the bed, "It's Carson, you're gonnae be just fine."

Even as he spoke her rigid body began shaking in his grasp, a low, guttural groan coming from Keller's throat. She fought them, though he knew she had no conscious control over what she was doing.

"She's fitting. Let's get her secure, please," he said far more calmly than he felt, continuing almost without a breath to order the treatment regime he intended to follow, and added, without turning his head, trusting his medical team to follow instructions, "Someone please see to the Professor's injuries."

"Doctor Beckett," Marie's concerned tones as she called his name made him look up from the canula into which he was administering the additional drugs he'd ordered. He saw, with growing concern, the run of blood-flecked tears coming from Keller's eyes, and the blood that seemed to seep from beneath her fingernails.

"Can't be helped, Marie," he told her softly, "and the blood on her hands may not be her own. We're going to have to trust her to hang in there, just now. One thing at a—"

"Try this."

Beckett blinked as Doctor Haddad eased into place beside Marie, who smiled and gave way to the other doctor. He hadn't expected to see Ayatesha, but had to admit her presence was not unwelcome. The Egyptian doctor reached across to offer him a small, capped syringe. The fluid inside was a green tinged, straw-like colour.

"What is it?" he asked, taking the syringe, and uncapping it with his teeth.

"I modified your original retrovirus to target the Wraith cells with a simulated HiP action. It is rough, and has a rapid half-life, but it may just work for long enough to give the other drugs a chance to stabilise her condition," she said.

With just a moment's thought, and trusting the other woman, he began to inject the serum into the canula, watching the monitors as Keller's readings began to slowly – painfully slowly – creep toward a more stable output, her muscles relaxing as the fitting stopped. His eyes widened, and he looked across into the concerned brown eyes of his friend.

"Ayatesha…" he breathed, then frowned as she shook her head.

"I do not believe that the introduction of Human Inhibiting Proteins is the answer, Carson. In fact, in the long run, I think it may be very dangerous to do so, but as a short term stop-gap, to allow your treatments to reach her, and not become swallowed up in the interactions happening within her modified cells, it was the only thing I could think of… unless of course you have Wraith somewhere, whom you can persuade to visit upon her a reverse of the feeding process."

"What?" he hissed, moving away from the other medical technicians, and trusting them to care for Keller now that she had begun to stabilise again. He stepped away to speak with Ayatesha. "What are you talking about?"

"Wraith enzyme, Carson," she stepped closer to speak with him quietly, urgently. "The blood sample I took from her earlier was full of it, or at least a close approximation of it. Given that the Wraith produce this enzyme to facilitate the exchange of energies during their feeding process, I can only draw one conclusion. She is quite literally feeding on herself – her Wraith cells upon the human ones."

"Dear God, Ayatesha!" Carson swallowed hard and ran a hand through his hair. "How do we stop this?"

"I do. Not. Know," she told him, and reached out to put a hand onto his arm, "and we are out of time to experiment and find out."

"No," Carson turned his head away, and closed his eyes. "I can't, Y'tesha. There _has_ to be another way."

* * *

Sheppard ducked aside as a trio of hybrids rushed from his right, where he had missed yet another small opening into the cave. The surrounding rocks must have been a honeycomb of passageways, and he knew that did not bode well for the defensiveness of his position.

He turned full circle and brought his P90 to bear just in time to cut down the nearest of the three hybrids, then threw himself into a quick shoulder roll to avoid falling victim to the blast of the Wraith stunners carried by the hybrids two companions.

Madness had erupted around him, in the repeated flash of stunners, and the percussive rattle of answering automatic weaponry, his own included, as the team followed him in. They were outnumbered; barely holding their own as more hybrids appeared to take the place of their fallen companions. What the _hell_ were they protecting?

"John!"

The sound went through him; stunned him as surely as if he had been hit by the blast of an enemy weapon.

"Teyla," he breathed, uncomprehending… disbelieving. His eyes blurred with unbidden tears, obscuring the rushing attack of another hybrid. The impact of the other's body against his own freed him from his paralysis, and on instinct he swung the side of his P90 into the oncoming path of the knife, deflecting the strike and then, following through the momentum of the swing, twisted the butt of the weapon around to catch the unprotected hybrid a blow to the side of the head. The hybrid fell away, enough to allow Sheppard to regain his feet, and his breath. Fighting to make himself heard over the rising cacophony he called out, "Teyla… TEYLA!"

He brought his weapon to bear once more against the enemy that kept on coming from all sides. In short, controlled bursts he pushed slowly forward, further into the cave, listening again for the sound of her voice, determined to reach Teyla. Now that he had found her, he had to keep her safe.

* * *

The sound of gunfire and the shouts of voices increased to an almost deafening crescendo. One voice, raised in increasing desperation, answered Teyla's cry, calling her name – Sheppard's voice – and Teyla seemed to redouble the struggles she made, attempting to rise against his restraining hold.

"Remain where you are," he told her, curtly. He tried to contain his anger, but the tone he used should have left her little doubt that he expected to be obeyed, then turning his head he called out to those of his forces that were not hybrids, "Take them alive… and quickly!"

He added the last as tendrils of mist began to slowly rise from the floor of the cave, signs of an added danger that he had never intended to be released. As Teyla's struggles subsided, he began to ease the tightness of his grip, rising away from her, and preparing to join the melee; to neutralise the threat. He trusted his soldiers to do the rest.

Movement brought a rush of pain from his side. He pushed it away. He didn't have time to acknowledge it until he was certain the situation was secure, and he could return Teyla to safety at the heart of the facility. Even the run of blood he felt tracking slowly down over his hip did nothing to divert his purpose. The rising mist was thickening. He had little time.

Teyla's hand closed around his wrist, a tight and desperate grasp. He could feel her fear through their bond, and it brought his anger again, as he could tell it was not fear for herself.

"Michael, no," she said urgently, "Please, do not—"

"I said, stay where you are," he snapped, and pulled his wrist out of her grasp. He reached with his other hand to ensure her compliance, almost tucking her into the side of the nearest console. Still attempting to temper his ire, he added, more gently, "I will _not_ allow anyone to harm you."

She persisted and snatched at the cuff of his coat as he began to move away.

"Please, Michael, if you go out there, they will kill you," she implored.

He rounded on her, the sight of her, as circumstance had placed them, he knew – her on her knees, clasping at him, her face naught but a frightened plea – was too much for his control to stifle; pushed him to a physical response.

He grasped her wrist to pull her hand away from his sleeve, at the same time he virtually lifted her to her feet, to catch her closer, all other threats forgotten, and all but snarled into her face, "I am not afraid of them, Teyla."

* * *

Teyla gasped and pressed her hands to his chest. His fingers, an uncompromising vice around her wrist, left little doubt that his anger, which she thought had begun to subside, had never really left him.

Did he not understand that her fear was for _him_? If Sheppard saw him, she knew that John's feelings would not allow clemency for Michael. They would fight, and neither would stop, and it would not end until one or other of them was dead.

Her stomach churned at the thought, and her mind floundered in need of something to say, some reassurance, some words with which she could reach through Michael's anger, make him open to her once more.

"I did not suggest it," she told him, her voice earnest, "but they are soldiers, just as your men. They do not—"

She felt it in the same moment that his head jerked up, alert, almost as though he were sniffing the air. His hold on her shifted, becoming no weaker, but once more protective, rather than punishing. He lowered their joined hands, and moved them back, until she once more felt the solid mass of the console behind her. Then he half turned, keeping his body between her and the room.

"What is it?" she hissed, experiencing a resurgence of fear, her own, and his, as his mental presence flooded her again. She felt, rather than heard, an empty, hollow knocking that passed through the air as if it were some kind of beacon, like radar, or sonar. Outside of the madness of sound that was the continued weapons' fire, it penetrated the depth of her, like the vibrations of some enormous bass drum. She pressed a hand to the middle of Michael's back, stepping closer. "Michael?"

He offered no answer, merely let go of her, and instructed again, "Stay here."

"No, wait, I—"

He turned to her again, pushed his hand against her shoulder to move her back into the lea of the equipment that sheltered her.

"We do not have _time_ for this," he said.

_-stay- -stay- -stay- -stay- -stay-_

She wrapped her arms around herself as he stepped away from her, into the noise and the flashes of gunfire that flared against a mist that she had not noticed before, but which now swirled on unseen breezes in the confines of the cave.

* * *

He should have followed Sheppard.

The thought didn't occur to him until he unfolded from where he had curled up, hands over his head, rattling off his distress call, barely pausing for breath. It didn't occur to him until he realised that he was no longer twitching and jumping with each blast from a Wraith stunner or rattle of P90 fire, that the barn had fallen strangely quiet around him.

Slowly, McKay raised his head.

"Sheppard?" he called, though his voice was little more than a timid croak. Clearing his throat he called out more loudly, "Sheppard?"

No answer came to him, and somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered a call on the radio telling him where to go – what the team was doing. He stood up cautiously and looked around, his mind clearing as the fear withdrew.

"Exit at the rear of the barn," he said to himself, the beginnings of a relieved smile coming to his face as he began to pick his way through the debris of the battle. He'd crossed half way toward the dark opening he could see before another thought occurred to him and he came to a stop almost as if he had collided with an unseen obstacle. He murmured, "Practise what you preach, McKay."

He quickly fished the life signs detector from his jacket pocket and turned it toward the opening, stabbing at its interface with urgent strokes that became increasingly more rapid as the equipment failed to yield the usable data he had expected. Some short way along the passageway all readings just… stopped.

"Oh, now this can't be good," he whined, shaking the handheld box as if it would make a difference. It didn't. Swallowing he reached up to his earpiece and keyed the radio. "Sheppard, this is McKay, do you read?"

Static hissed into his ear as if angry at the disturbance. Undeterred, he adjusted the frequency and tried again. "Sheppard, McKay, what's going on?"

Consulting the life signs detector again as the sibilant denial continued to fill his ear, McKay's frown deepened. He'd seen this before, and might have expected it as one aspect of Michael's modus operandi if he had given it more than a fleeting second of his thought – some kind of electromagnetic shielding that would interfere with sensors and radio waves alike. He was hiding something.

"Had been," McKay reminded himself. "Had been hiding something, but now he's gone, and whatever it is doesn't need to be hidden any more."

He snapped his fingers and turned, his steps bringing him back to the central console in the barn. He gave a moment's pause, remembering also what had happened the last time he'd tried to tamper with Michael's systems; shuddered a little and clutched at his arm as though the memory of the explosion made it ache.

Had he been operating the console, he might not have heard it, faint as it was. The sound came not from the void in the back of the barn, but from outside, faint but growing louder… coming closer.

"Ah, crap!" he spat, and ran to the barn door, peering into the sky to try and get a visual confirmation of what his ears were telling him. The sound increased – an angry buzzing, familiar and hated. He didn't bother waiting to see, just hurried back to the console. He had to get the radio working again. He had to warn Sheppard.

* * *

Sheppard couldn't be sure, but the steady flow of hybrids seemed to have been slowing. The last two figures that fell to the onslaught of his gunfire had been mercenaries, and the hope began to stir that maybe the influx of enemies had reached its peak.

He felt an easing in the hopelessness of the situation and began trying to make an assessment of the best strategy. Even though there were fewer enemies arriving, he and his team were still outnumbered, and surrounded. He decided that, no matter how much he might want to, regrouping was not an option. Fire from all around made gathering near impossible, and they would all have to clear their way from their current positions, because many of his people were pinned down.

As if to remind him of the continuing danger, the shattered remains of some kind of glass tank crackled red with the discharge from a stunner. The bolt spread like lightening over the jagged fragments of glass and he spun away barely in time to avoid the second shot. The sergeant behind him was not so fortunate. The man's body stiffened and, still convulsing, pitched to the side, sending up a spiral of the mist that had been gathering as the battle progressed.

That added another thread of concern to Sheppard's repertoire of 'this-was-a-really-messed-up-operation.' God alone knew what Michael had been cooking up in those tanks, or what manner of toxic chemicals it was that had combined to precipitate the fog throughout the lower half of the cave. The problem was: it was rising. Perhaps it _would_ be better to withdraw before it rose higher – affected, or _in_fected them all.

"Take them alive… and quickly!"

As if thoughts of his experiments had conjured the Wraith-Human hybrid out from the depth of the unfolding nightmare, Michael's voice rang out through the cave. Sheppard growled, his blood suddenly superheated with rage, drew him toward the source of the sound even before conscious thought could warn him it was probably not the best of strategies.

"Son-of-a—!" How could he have survived? What kind of twisted universe allowed a creature like that to survive when so many good men died? Had Teyla really got him off the Hive? His thoughts darkened still further when he realised, unwillingly, that it was just as likely that it had been the other way around. Answering the thought he raised his weapon, and fired blindly into the thickest area of mist, into which his angry strides were carrying him.

Pain blossomed along his left bicep, a burning that sped up toward his shoulder as the impact of a body took him sideways, to trap him between itself and the floor. He coughed as he breathed in a huge lungful of the bitter mist, fought to see the attacker that now crawled over him, and felt the rhythmic knock of some bass beat stirring in his belly. Adrenaline surged within him as fear responded to the call of the unknown as, out of the mist, a grotesque face came at his own: wrinkled, scarred and sightless eyes and an open mouth filled to overflowing with razor sharp teeth.

* * *

Caldwell grabbed the arm of the command chair as the ship bucked sideways, and off to his right, one of the panels exploded in a flash of sparks and fire.

"What the—!"

"Wraith cruiser, Sir," Marks answered. "Shadowing our course: she's firing."

"Damn it!" Caldwell gripped his chair again. "Evasive manoeuvres! Get us within range to launch the 302s."

"Already on it," Marks said, and lurched in his seat as the bolts from the cruiser collided with their aft hull plating.

"Major Marks!" Caldwell barked.

"Sorry, Sir, it's the best I can do," he gasped.

Caldwell half turned in his seat to see his con. officer fighting with the ship's controls, while all around them bridge personnel scrambled to provide what support they could.

"Shields?" he snapped, swinging to face forwards again and turning his head to the tactical console on his other side.

"37 percent, Sir." The officer tapped her screen as the ship lurched again, and then said, "Correction, 32 percent."

Swearing softly, Caldwell punched the button in the arm of his chair, and ordered, "Evanston, you have a go. Launch your fighters and proceed with ground support." Then barely pausing for breath he turned his attention to Marks and his tactical officer. "Major Marks, bring us about, please. Standby forward cannons."

* * *

Sheppard barely managed to get the P90 up as a shield between his head and the rapidly descending teeth, struggling as he was to free himself from beneath the terrifying _thing_ that attacked him, and the claw-like hands that tore at his body.

Despite having the feeling that he was fighting off a rabid dog, the creature atop Sheppard uttered no sound, save a low hissing, and the sub-aural pulse that still flowed through the contact between their bodies. It made Sheppard's chest ache – hurting as his heart fought against the adrenaline surge to fall into time with the almost hypnotic rhythm.

The creature lunged again, once more colliding with the P90 that Sheppard brought up to halt its forward momentum. Instead of recoil, the creature turned aside and in the next second, the razor-like incisors sank through the flesh of Sheppard's left arm. Sheppard howled, unable to imagine a time when such a searing sting – almost as if acid coated the Wraith-like teeth – burned through his body from a single hurt. Without thinking he swung upward with his right hand, bringing the butt of the P90 to connect hard with the creature, tearing it away from the bite, and then had to duck to the right to avoid another incoming assault.

Faster than he had anticipated, the creature struck again, and the P90 was out of position to provide defence, his only option was to move, ducking this time to the left, then straining upwards, forcing his elbows beneath his back to give himself some leverage, he pulled back his own neck, and thrust forward, bringing the side of his head to collide with the creature's chin.

* * *

Michael tipped back his head, pausing in his advance to watch as his creature struggled with the figure on the ground. He had to admit a certain admiration for Sheppard that he had survived so long. Deadly and relentless, once they had their prey downed, the creatures usually had their kill within seconds, driven by maddening hunger that he had been unable to suppress enough to make them controllable. Their creation had been an experiment that had been an almost complete failure.

The creature's hiss turned to a snarl as Sheppard managed to launch an attack of his own. It was a mistake, Michael knew. When hurt, the creatures attacked with twice the fury of their natural state. He almost smiled in amusement as the creature proved true to type, and leaped at Sheppard from where it had been driven back by the blow from Sheppard's head.

Michael began to raise his stunner; paused. He should wait, allow the creature to finish off his foe; remove this obstacle, this rival, once and for all without even a drop of Sheppard's blood falling – more than circumstantially – on his hands.

* * *

The breath flew out of Sheppard's lungs as the creature impacted his chest, leaping at him, its face aiming for his head. He was out of time, and it seemed, luck. He raised his uninjured arm, the P90 was now trapped between them and useless. Sheppard braced himself, knowing that his actions would provide little defence.

The creature jerked back, suddenly and inexplicably flailing. In the following second, a sticky wetness sprayed against the side of his face, and Sheppard brought his right arm closer to himself, as the iron smell of blood assaulted every sensibility and sent his already roiling stomach churning toward nausea.

The weight on him fell away, and scrambling to put some distance between him, and whatever had been the cause of his salvation, Sheppard shuffled backwards, struggling to regain a hold on his now slick P90.

He opened his eyes and gasped, redoubling his efforts as he looked up and found himself face to face with Michael. The Wraith-Human hybrid stood with his face fixed in a snarl of half triumph, half anger, and the knife he still held in his hand dripped with the blood of the creature – _his_ creature that he had so obviously killed.

Sheppard's blood froze, and half in fear, half in a surge of protective jealousy, he began to force himself to his feet, wrapping his hands around the weapon as securely as he could to raise it; aim it at Michael's head. The movement brought the dull ache from the bite on his injured arm to scream through him again, and it sharpened his anger and his desire to make Michael accountable for everything.

"You bastard!" John cried, finding the trigger with his finger and beginning to squeeze.

Faster than Sheppard would have thought possible, even knowing Michael's abilities, he slapped the P90 aside and grabbing the straps, swung the knife up to slice through them as if they were tissue. Michael's pull on the straps wrenched the weapon from Sheppard's hands and the momentum pulled Sheppard closer, until Michael half turned and pitched him further into the mass of equipment behind him.

Even as he stumbled, trying to keep his newly found feet under him, Sheppard knew that Michael would come after him. He had seen it in the almost human expression on the hybrid's face.

"Always name calling, Colonel," Michael hissed. The words were mild, but the tone held more menace than Sheppard had ever heard. "Always names."

Sheppard had almost been able to straighten to a standing position when Michael's first swing came towards his face. His balled fist still held the knife, but Sheppard could tell by the angle of it that Michael did not intend to cut him. He managed to duck aside, and tried to sweep his leg into Michael's path; to take his feet from under him. He could clearly see Michael's feelings in the hybrid's eyes.

* * *

The madness of the fight swirled around her as surely as the mist around her ankles, and for too long a time, Teyla remained huddled in the lea of the laboratory equipment, wrapped in the embrace of her own protective arms. When had it come to this? Terrified to act in case she hurt those most dear to her, how could she bring this conflict to an end? On which side did she stand?

She pushed away from the console, blinking away tears, and uncoiled herself, her eyes searching, ears alert for any sound. Either way she could do nothing without a weapon and if she entered the melee unprepared, carelessly, she would be just as likely to end up a casualty of the battle as she feared Michael and Sheppard would be.

Michael and Sheppard… Michael _or_ Sheppard… the thought taunted her as she moved, trying not to stumble against the fallen, still obscured by the low lying mist. Tentatively she reached out with her senses. If she could find Michael…

Unprepared as she was, the searing cold of the contact flooded through her mind, and drew a sharp gasp to her lips. It could not be possible. They had left… lured away by the sacrifices Michael had made, by his sending his ships to lead them, tempt them… and she trusted his word. Yet there could be no mistaking the feeling she had known her whole life, and stronger since her bond with Michael.

She reached out further… _how long do we have…?_ More frantically searched for a weapon to defend herself, and finding none, sharpened her attempts to reach the others.

They were all in great danger. They were already here.

* * *

Michael sidestepped the sweeping leg and lashed out as he turned. He connected solidly with Sheppard's shoulder and pushed, meaning to take the human down. He heard as well as felt Sheppard wince, but the human continued in the fight, lashing out toward him with a balled fist that connected with his right eye, driving pain through his skull and calling up the rage that blinded him as surely as the blow to his face.

Sheppard's next swing connected with his stomach, and Michael let out a sound as the impact knocked the breath from him. He ducked aside as Sheppard threw another angry punch his way, then stepped in to block the fourth, catching the man's arm under his own, grabbing hold to force the arm backwards, and sharply brought his elbow down on Sheppard's extended joint. As he used the continued pressure to force the man to his knees, Sheppard cried out. He had him at his mercy.

"Stop!" Teyla's voice rang out, urgent and coloured by a tone he knew was of fear. "Michael, please… let him go."

"Teyla," Sheppard gasped, and the simple act of answering her made Michael's anger flare again. Instead of releasing him, he moved closer, tightening the grasp that forced the human's joint to an unnatural angle, and moving his free hand to bring the knife in quickly toward Sheppard's undefended body.

…_they are here…_

Michael froze.

…_there is no more time…_

Cursing himself, Michael widened his senses, felt, as he knew Teyla must, the increasing number of Wraith, ground troops, drones and their commanders.

Abruptly he released Sheppard, pushing the man away, but paid little heed to his falling. Already he had stepped toward Teyla. Already he had commanded his hybrids to abandon the fight against the humans and to defend their retreat. Humans were easy prey, but the Wraith…

* * *

"What the—"

Sheppard impacted the ground hard, tried to roll with the fall to reduce the pain of the impact on his abused body. It made no sense. Michael had had him; had him cold, and then to just stop… it made no sense to him.

"Teyla," he called out for her again.

"John, go!" Her voice was urgent, but still he didn't understand, and he certainly wasn't about to abandon her to Michael. He rolled to his feet, watching as the Wraith-Human hybrid moved toward his friend.

"No!" he called out, and his heart twisted in a confused anguish of pain as Michael turned back toward him, and he saw Teyla seeming to reach for Michael's hand.

"If you wish to survive," Michael's voice rumbled across the pain, stirring it to a near maddening jealousy, "you will listen to her."

"Leave her alo—"

"You don't understand," Teyla interrupted. "There are Wr—"

A shot rang out, echoing around the confines of the cave, and it was not from the weapons of either of their forces. It was a staff weapon blast, and that could mean only one thing: Wraith.

As if to confirm the escalating nightmare, the blast was followed by a single gurgling cry, and turning toward the sound, Sheppard couldn't help but watch in horror as, across the distance, the air force sergeant, partly suspended against the cave wall, aged and withered before his eyes as the Wraith commander fed. Behind the commander, and from the many other tunnels that Sheppard knew led through the surrounding mountain, many forms began to swarm into the laboratory.

Barely stifling a cry of horror, one of Sheppard's team turned from the standoff with Michael's hybrids, and began to fire, uncontrolled bursts, into the oncoming Wraith, and after a second of thought the hybrid did the same, though in a more controlled manner, but alone they were little more than the proverbial drop, and this particular inundation was growing larger by the moment.

As if inertia was broken on the edge of that moment in time, the air around Sheppard erupted into heat and light. Cries and the hissing snarls of falling Wraith, mercenary and hybrid alike filled the echoing dome, descended like something out of nightmare into a singular realisation in Sheppard's mind: there was no way they were going to make it alone.

Even with the fact that most of his men had already been pinned in cover by Michael's hybrids, so were not falling victim to the incoming Wraith the way others were, or perhaps _because_ of it, there would be little chance of them making it out easily if at all.

"Target the Wraith!" Michael called out. "Take them out!"

Sheppard didn't understand why Michael's voice cut so clearly across the chaos until he started to turn, meaning to see that Teyla was safe, more than that, intent on getting to her side. Turning, he almost collided with the Wraith-Human hybrid, and fumbled to catch a hold of the P90 that Michael slapped against his chest.

"Always by circumstance, Colonel Sheppard," Michael hissed, his voice low and dangerous. "If either of us is to survive this, we have no choice but to fight them as allies."

Sheppard's eyes narrowed, hardened as he met Michael's… a silent promise that their personal conflict wasn't over. That only by such circumstances would they ever be anything other than enemies. Then he hefted the weapon, stepping away from Michael and firing into the incoming Wraith, at the same time calling out his own orders, "Coordinate your fire with Michael's forces. Take out the Wraith!"

* * *

The upper atmosphere was streaked red with the superheated trails of incoming craft, as Darts and 302s danced around each other in aerial confusion, each seeking advantage over the other, like pairs of fighting hawks cast by their masters in deadly competition.

McKay barely rolled aside in time to avoid the distorted air that heralded the Wraith materialiser's beam as another unit of Wraith resolved into existence and started toward the smoking ruins of what had been the barn a few terrible moments ago…

_He could never afterward pinpoint exactly what had given him the warning, but the feeling of dread that melted over his spine as if some icy fingers were toying with him in a disturbingly sexual manner pulled him from the uncooperative console and sent him sprinting for the barn's exit._

_He vowed to give up every second helping, his breathing becoming laboured even as he burst from between the doorway's supporting columns, and swerved aside. He was already covering his head as though he believed the low flying Dart, powering overhead on a deadly strafing run toward the barn, would scalp him. Stumbling as he ran, he tried to dodge the flying sods and chips of stone sent up by the impact from the Wraith Dart's blaster._

_No longer able to contain the scream that came from deep in his gut and grated along his vocal chords, McKay dived to the side, just as the heat of the first of the explosions rolled over him, preferring to risk a glancing injury from the second Dart's strafing run toward the partly destroyed building._

_He crawled still further away on his elbows and knees, looking for cover as the remaining Darts began beaming in the ground troops._

There was little left to provide him with cover, but he knew if the Wraith saw him, they would leave little of him behind, and even with the 302s firing to take out as many of the life-sucking bastards as they could, he was surrounded, and terrified.

He pushed away from the ground, where the roll had deposited him into a slight depression and sprinted for what looked like the remaining wall of a ruined building. As endangered by 'friendly fire' as he was by the Wraith, the threw himself past the splintered wood, stifling the cry he wanted to shriek to the heavens as the jagged material caught at his open jacket and ripped the fabric; tore against his skin. Instead he scrambled backward until his back found the solid remains, until he could reach around him and pull debris to cover him. He drew up his knees, adopting a foetal position and clutched his P90 tightly against his shins.

His terrified breathing came in snatches, which became sobs that wracked him to the core of everything he was. Damn Sheppard for his stupid grief. Damn Todd for everything he'd done to all of them in his power hungry machinations. Damn the Wraith and Damn Michael worst of all.

Damn Michael to hell.

* * *

"Go!"

Michael pushed urgently at Teyla's shoulder, moving her further along the wall and into the smaller antechamber that led toward the heart of his compound. His course was clear. There was no choice, he would have to make the launch and take the cloning facility to the safety of one of his outer world bases. He had already silently ordered the majority of his hybrids to retreat and prepare the launch.

Covering Teyla's entry to the room he fired blind into the darkness, turning first one way and then the other, following the pull of his senses as he backed up into the anteroom, their last defensive position. Even with the hybrid soldiers he had kept with them, and what few remained of Sheppard's forces, they would be hard pressed to maintain the small advantage they would gain in achieving that position.

"Michael!"

Dread flowed through him at the alarm in Teyla's call, and he turned from the corridor to find her spinning in combat against a trio of Wraith drones, who may well have been lying in wait.

She lashed out at the nearest of the drones, catching his face-plate with the side of her arm, it shattered, and allowing her free hand to jab at the vulnerable flesh beneath. The drone stumbled away, and she caught the staff weapon it released as it did, spinning the weapon in her hands and using it like a quarterstaff, bringing the blunt firing end to impact the second of the drones in the chest before sweeping its feet from under it with the bottom of the staff.

She was magnificent. Poised, fast and deadly she gave ground only to provide herself with room to use the staff. She leaped over a similar gambit meant to trip her aimed her way and turned in the air, her feet momentarily spinning over her, to come down against the upper side of a slanted console. She lashed out at the drone, forcing it back, and giving herself space to find solid ground. She _was_ magnificent, but she was outnumbered.

Flooded with the nausea of indecisive fear, Michael pressed his back to the wall and fired against the Wraith still following them along the corridor toward the antechamber. They could not be allowed to reach it. All chance would be gone if they did.

Sheppard's breath was an audible rush as the man threw himself at the opposite wall from Michael, and the rattle of his P90 echoed loudly.

"Go," the man called over the sound, "I've got this!"

Michael needed no second bidding. Leaving Sheppard to the fate he had accepted, he turned and launched himself into the room, into the knot of drones surrounding Teyla, firing as he went to free her from the menace. He wrapped a solid forearm around the neck of the one that, in the second before he reached Teyla's side to assist her, had landed its armoured fist a solid blow against her face.

Her head snapped back, and she stumbled backwards. Her blood splashed against Michael's cheek, and still holding the drone he savagely bent it back over the steel side of an experimentation bench, twisting savagely until he felt its arrhythmic twitch in his arms – its spine snapped and its spinal chord severed.

He dropped the drone and in a single second crossed the narrow space to wrap his arm around Teyla's waist, even as she pushed at him still slightly stunned from the force of the blow.

"It is nothing," she told him breathlessly, but even so did not fight him as he eased her to cover behind one of the consoles.

"Remain here," he told her, turning to activate the computer, somewhat comforted to see that for now, hybrid and human soldiers were holding back the remaining Wraith.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sheppard yelled from the doorway, only just audible above the repeated rattle of his weapon.

"Closing the door," he snapped back, not without irony in his tone of voice.

"What are you—?" He knew that Sheppard had understood his meaning from the expression he could see growing on the man's face. "You'll bring the entire mountain down on our heads!"

"That's the idea," he answered calmly, keying the final sequence to detonate the charges.

"You're insane!" Sheppard spat.

It should have angered him. Instead, he chuckled, and almost inaudibly answered, "Quite possibly."

* * *

Beckett didn't even lift his head from his hands when the soft touch fell on the back of his neck. Her hands caressed him gently, and were cool and welcome as a balm against the fevered fire that ached in his brain.

"Y'tesha," he sighed softly as her caress became a guiding touch that brought his head to rest against her sparrow-like shoulder.

"Sssh, Carson," she whispered, nuzzling with her cheek against the top of his head. "You have struggled with this long enough. You have known for a long time that this, ultimately, is all that you have left."

"I'm not that man, Ayatesha," he lifted his head from her shoulder then, but didn't pull away from her. He needed the familiarity, the comfort, but even then, tried to deny himself his needs. "Not who you think I am."

"You are a clone, created by a man that you made from a Wraith," she told him, "I know who you are, but question if _you_ do."

"What do you mean?" he asked, frowning softly.

Gently she ran her fingertips across his brow and down the side of his face, speaking as she did. Her voice was as soft and gentle as her touch.

"You carry with you all the memories and life experiences of your former self. The joys, the sorrows, the successes and the mistakes that you have always carried, they are still with you. You are as much Carson Beckett as you have ever been, you cannot deny yourself." She met his eyes then, "but you have a uniqueness, a gift that few of the rest of us have. You have stood within the howling wilderness, looked into the bleakness of the dark at the heart of all of us and you. Have. Survived."

Her eyes filled to overflowing as she spoke, and frowning he lifted a hand to brush away her tears, turned his head to kiss the scars at her wrist as her thumb shifted over his cheek.

"But to go back to it," he murmured against her skin, nuzzling the rough evidence of her mistreatment, "even for this…"

"You," she breathed, "will go back because you, as I, know that it is _bigger_ than just this. You knew… from the minute you created Michael that it is bigger than just this. And they will not understand because they _do_ not understand."

He lifted his face away from her arm then, looked into her eyes again, cold with the fearful knowledge that she _did_ understand… that she too had knowledge of the howling darkness of which she spoke.

"What did they do to you, Ayatesha?" he whispered.

"No, Carson," she denied him. "Now is not the time. It begins in Jennifer, not with me."

"Tell me," he implored her, moving closer so she had no choice but to look up to see him.

"Listen," she murmured, "sometimes, by complete accident, we see… more than we are meant to see and… when we try to follow our conscience and do what we know is _right_ but not _easy,_ others who have not seen as we have… try to force conformity to their will."

"You're not making any sense, sweetheart," Carson said softly, daring the word that had been on his lips since he saw her again, but hardly daring to breathe.

"Yes, hayati, I am," she whispered, her face creasing with pain, "Just that you are not hearing."

"What do I need to hear?" he moved closer, sharing almost breath with her.

"They gave me your original research, your results. The ones you purged from your computers," she told him, then meeting his eyes with the heavy weight of shared understanding, confessed, "And I deconstructed it."

"Oh God," he said. "Y'tesha, I'm s—"

"Sssh, Carson," she whispered, closing the distance between them. "You have struggled with this long enough."

Her lips brushed against his, and sobbing into the kiss, he drew her closer still, surrendering to the emotions, and to the knowledge that she was right. Ultimately, there was only one course of action that he had left.

* * *

Sheppard ducked aside as the rain of debris fell from the roof of the tunnel and fought to keep his feet as the ground lurched beneath him. One after another, Michael's charges fired, cutting off the incursion of the Wraith, but effectively trapping them all inside.

Safe from the Wraith, Sheppard, still burned with anger, and with nowhere left on which to turn it back, save on the architect of all of the trouble and anguish and pain, he turned on Michael, ready to fulfil his unspoken promise. For what he had done to Teyla, Sheppard would give no quarter.

He pushed the pain away from his elbow, damaged in the beginning of their interrupted fight, and before he'd managed to move away from the console, charged at Michael.

"John, no!"

Teyla's anguished cry did nothing to stop him, only the satisfaction of Michael's pained snarl as his shoulder connected heavily with the Wraith-Human hybrid's side gave Sheppard a moment's pause as Michael stumbled away, barely a step, two…

Michael recovered quickly, seeming more than willing to meet Sheppard in their unfinished conflagration, and tried to swing a savage punch into Sheppard's face. He stepped up to grab a hold of him at the same time, but it appeared to Sheppard that he'd caught Michael off guard and off balance. Michael slipped to one knee and was forced to release him.

"John," Teyla called out again, and then cried more urgently, "Michael!"

It was more than Sheppard could bear to hear, an urgent, panicked cry for a murderous bastard like Michael assaulted Sheppard's every sensibility, and blinded with rage, he ignored Teyla's cries to desist.

Focussed on destroying Michael, something he knew he should have done a long time ago, Sheppard pulled his 9mm from his leg holster and pointed it at Michael's head. All activity in the small, sealed in antechamber came grinding to a halt at that single moment in time, as hybrid faced off against human, poised on the knife edge of danger.

"Tell me why you should live?" Sheppard growled.

* * *

Teyla had never heard Sheppard speak in such a tone, and terrified for Michael, hearing the words and without a conscious thought to press upon her the stupidity of the action, she all but threw herself between the 9mm and Michael.

"Teyla, no!" Sheppard called, and in the same moment, Michael too forbade her act in his salvation.

"Teyla, move aside!" Why was he still on his knees?

Arms wrapped around her waist, and she felt her feet lifted from the floor as she was spun aside, pushed hard against a bank of computers. The bulk of a hybrid held her in place and she fought with him like a wounded hellcat. Her eyes filled with tears and her blood both burned and froze to a halt as she saw John's finger tightening on the trigger.

"No… John!" she cried, and then clawing again at the hybrid demanded of him, "Let me go…! Michael!"

* * *

Sheppard barely noticed that it was a hybrid that had pulled Teyla out of his way, only that he once again had a clear shot at Michael's head.

"Do it, Colonel!" one of his men called, and the encouragement was almost painful as everything in him screamed to pull the trigger, but as tight as the cold metal was against his index finger, he couldn't; was still waiting, almost _desperate_ for Michael to respond to his question.

"John, no…" Teyla's pleading tone almost drove him to madness. What had this bastard _done_ to his friend that she would want such a thing?

He stepped forward, fury in every line of his body as he dug the weapon into Michael's forehead.

"Fucking answer me," he yelled. "NOW!"

* * *

The pain in his side had increased exponentially as the adrenaline of danger from the battle with the Wraith faded. Sheppard's attack had taken him by surprise – carelessness. He couldn't allow it to continue… sooner or later the equilibrium would break, would snap like a frozen twig under the pressure of a heavy boot. He had to be ready.

He took in a breath that he made every effort to ensure was not in any way as laboured as it felt, and shifting his eyes up to meet Sheppard's, ignoring the discomfort of the weapon's barrel digging into his flesh, spoke as calmly and quietly as he could.

"All these years, Colonel Sheppard," he said, tilting his head in spite of the weapon, "and you have been pursuing me – your mistake – like a ghost. I know that you're blaming me for what has happened, but... if you truly believed that, you would have pulled the trigger on the P90 the moment you saw me."

He watched as Sheppard's eyes flickered with painful admittance of the truth of his words, and took a breath. The moment was coming. He felt his heart beat almost painfully in his chest and fought against the instinctive need to flick his eyes to where he heard the hybrid release his hold on Teyla. He took another breath.

"If you were going to kill me, you wouldn't be standing here now," he continued, trusting Teyla to hold her place as he sent another soft but barbed taunt Sheppard's way. "You won't kill me, John Sheppard, because you know that if you do, you will break Teyla's heart."

* * *

For a moment, the truth in Michael's words sapped every ounce of will from him, and utterly defeated Sheppard frowned, and began to lower his weapon. He could hear his soldiers, telling him to just shoot the bastard, but… what about Teyla?

All the anger began to seep away from him too. Without Teyla, what was there? What had Michael done to her, and how in the name of both galaxies could he ever hope to save her from it if he gave her that pain?

"And that is your weakness," Michael snarled.

Too slow, as Michael made a grab for him, Sheppard tried to raise the 9mm to finish what he had, in cold blood, been unable to do, but rising quickly, Michael caught him a glancing blow, driving him to the side, and the round went hopelessly wide, before the gun became trapped between them, and the pressure of Michael's fingers at his wrist began to numb his hand.

He fought to squeeze the trigger again.

* * *

Hope crumpled in Teyla as the fight resumed, as Michael and Sheppard grappled with the instrument of their destruction. Desperate, she snatched for the stunner at the hybrid's waist, took it into her shaking hands.

They were moving so quickly, turning first one way and then another and she couldn't get a clear shot. She could see from his face that all John's mercy for Michael had flown – knew that he would kill him if he could. She would have a single chance…

In an agony of desperation, she cried out, "Michael!"

…_Michael… …Michael… …Michael…_

At her cry, he turned her way, dragging Sheppard around with him. It gave her the shot she needed and she squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Sheppard stiffened in his arms as the stunner blast went through him. Michael pushed back the residual tingling of it that nipped at his own consciousness. The gun clattered to the floor at their feet.

Turning his head her way as he lowered Sheppard to the ground, he saw Teyla throw the stunner from her as though it scalded her to touch it, her eyes were awash with pain. He had sworn never to hurt her, and yet in defending himself, in pushing Sheppard to break a deadly equilibrium that held them all at a time when there could be no delay afforded, he had done so. He closed his eyes and breathed out.

"I am sorry, Teyla. I—" When she did not answer, he opened his eyes, looked into the frustrated, terrified tears he saw there, and took a step toward her. She backed away, wrapping her arms around herself as she did. He froze, his own pain clenching in his gut. "Teyla?"

"He would have given you clemency," she whispered, "but _every_ time you taunt him, and you _push_ and push until he cannot bear it. Why, Michael?"

"Bear _it_, Teyla?" he questioned softly. "What is _it_ that he cannot bear – to hear the truth? To know that he was instrumental in doing to me as no compassionate human would, and that in giving me a choice that was _no_ choice, and then forcing that end upon me time and again he has created the very thing that he now so despises?"

"But you never gave him the chance to—"

"I gave him _every_ chance!" Michael raised his voice, taking another step her way and once more freezing with the fearful conflict that flowed through him as she backed away again. More softly he said, "Every chance, Teyla. I would have helped Atlantis, but was instead rejected; came to you for help, and was denied. At every turn he has hunted me."

"Wouldn't you?" She took a step his way then, unwrapped the defensive shield she had made of her arms. "In his place, if admitting everything you had done had brought about the terrors that you had sworn to defend against, that you would lose everything you were, everything you had ever hoped for, and the one thing that you… love. Wouldn't you?"

Michael looked down and swallowed, not wanting Teyla to see the conflict in his eyes, the understanding and identifying compassion that her words kindled, uncomfortably, in him; not wanting her to know that she was so very right, but… he could see little choice. She wanted his honesty now, needed it, and to deny her would only push her away.

Finally he looked up at her, swallowed again and said, "I would."

_-I have- -have- -have- -have- -have-_

_

* * *

_

Teyla was prepared for almost any answer from Michael in that moment: anger, denial, a reminder that he only did what he must to survive… anything except his understanding – his empathy… the one thing that prevented her from pushing aside the love she felt for him; that held it up to her as the true and right feeling in her heart. She'd wanted to hate him, to prove that he was the monster that everyone else, that did not understand him, said he was. Instead he proved them all wrong.

She let out the sob she had been holding inside and closed the distance between them, slapping her hand against his chest.

"Why, Michael? Why now?" Her other fist came up to beat against him, and he allowed her the ineffectual slaps that punctuated her words. "All this time… all these years I have tried to reach you. Over and over I have tried and tried to tell you, but you didn't listen. You just continued… ignored compassion, and for what, Michael - for what?"

Emotionally exhausted, she grabbed the front of his coat, the strength beginning to seep from her legs as she admitted to herself the full force of her fear of losing him. His arms came around her, and she leaned against him, knowing how he would answer and that his words would be nothing more than the bitter truth that the universe had delivered them.

"We both know the answer to that, Teyla," he said softly. She felt him give a humourless laugh that left his breathing unsteady and laboured. "It is such a truth that it has become a cliché – the constant wedge that we drive between us."

He paused then, and she looked up at him, into his eyes – noticing the haze of pain that had begun to colour the edges of the golden irises.

"Would you rather I had given up?" he asked her, almost afraid.

"I would rather it had not brought so much pain," she told him, her answer both honest and a lie of omission at the same time, "that you did not."

He swallowed again, and nodded once. She knew that he was attempting to use the movement to mask the hurt she had caused him in not admitting to her feelings. She wanted to, but could not bring herself to say that one, simple word.

He took a breath then, and stepped away from her, turning to his hybrids.

"Take Colonel Sheppard and his men to the auxiliary Dart Bay, see to it that they are flown to the safety of their Jumper," he ordered.

Teyla brushed a touch against his arm as he finished speaking.

"Thank you, Michael," she said softly.

"Time to go," he said, with another nod, gesturing to the one tunnel that remained open.

* * *

Caldwell winced as another explosion of sparks and fire erupted behind the command chair. Marks was trying his best, he knew, but with the Wraith cruiser having little other than _Daedalus_ to occupy it as a target…

"Hard to port, Major Marks," he ordered, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of all of the alarms. "We have to keep that cruiser off us for—"

Even without glancing at the HUD he knew the change. The constant thump of the barrage of weapons' fire against the ship's hull ceased, and what few Darts were weaving between the two ships seemed to be pulling away.

"What just happened?" he demanded, then for the sake of his aching head thought to add, "And someone shut off that alarm?"

"Not sure, Sir," Marks said.

He turned to his con. officer and saw the frown of confusion on the man's face as he studied his screen, and then looked up at the HUD.

"Something just… happened," Marks answered at last. "On the planet's surface, Sir. The Wraith cruiser has broken off its attack. Shifting position, she—"

Feeling suddenly chilled with dread, Caldwell stood up from the command chair, and walked through the HUD to get an unobscured view of the forward screen.

Directly below them the planet's atmosphere was glowing in a sickly orange-red colour, as if fire was spreading around the planet, and for a long time – too long – Caldwell couldn't work out what he was seeing.

"More incoming Darts, Sir," the tactical officer said, shaking her head, "from the planet. They're heading—"

"Evasive manoeuvres, Marks!" Caldwell turned and almost threw himself back into his chair. In a flush of momentary clarity he had suddenly realised what had set the atmosphere aflame, and why the Wraith cruiser had changed her orbit away from her current position. "Those are energy bolts… something firing!"

* * *

As soon as he heard the overhead whine of the Dart, McKay dived for cover, dropping the remote signalling device from his hand which was numb with fear. He watched in horror as the Jumper decloaked, but his own instinct for self preservation prevented him from scrambling the few feet to retrieve it.

He was sure they'd all left… it had been like something out of his worst nightmare. Earthquakes, volcanoes… fire…

_The first of the explosions had brought the rest of the wall, beside which he was sheltering, crumbling down around him, leaving little but a pile of splintered remains covered him._

_The ground around him started to crumble, leaving him little choice but to scramble away, backwards at first, heedless of the splinters and shards that scratched the backs of his thighs, and then turning urgently as he felt the slide of earth begin to swallow his feet, he scrambled on all fours, fighting to push himself to his feet – to run._

_Behind him the ground opened up, a giant maw out of which some Kraken-like beast from the depth of hell had come to swallow him. He turned as he half ran, half scrambled, firing off random shots at the rising darkness, before abandoning even that._

_Fire spread from the belly of the beast, scorching the earth and blistering the skin of McKay's exposed body in the superheated air. He threw himself away, as far away as he could, turning and tumbling down the side of a small hillock… anything to escape the death that surely awaited him if he stayed._

_Momentarily stunned, and vulnerably exposed he lay on his back, blinking into the sky, into which the pulsing flashes of light were travelling ahead of the rising dark shape. It was only then that it occurred to him that it was a ship… a Wraith ship… no – one of Michael's – and that the Darts that had been flying strafing runs around the now hollow ground were following its ascent._

McKay's horror at revealing the Jumper increased when the Dart turned in the next moment and began to retrace its path over the now revealed Jumper. The trauma of the recent hours had led him to completely forget the P90 he still cradled like a comfort blanket. In the moments that followed, that lapse became a comfort to him, as the Dart activated its materialiser beam and deposited some very familiar figures in the relative safety of the lea of the Jumper before powering away.

"Sheppard!"

Without a second thought he scrambled out of the tangled briars he'd thrown himself into, ignorant of the scratches to his already tortured body, and snatching up the remote signalling device, started toward the small group.

The two men on their feet turned his way, moving defensively in front of the prone figure of his friend.

"Whoa," he did not immediately see that they were unarmed. "It's me… McKay. What the hell—"

"Michael," one of the men snapped.

McKay blinked, and for a moment felt as though he was going to vomit, his response was so visceral.

"Excuse me?" he asked, coming to a shaking halt, gesturing wildly with his hands as he spoke. "Because I thought for a minute you said Michael, and of course that's not possible because when that Superhive got disintegrated he was still aboard and that would mean he was blown apart and— really? He's still alive?"

From the ground, Sheppard moaned, "Michael's alive."

"Colonel Sheppard," the one that had spoken before turned to Sheppard and started to help him up.

"I'm fine," Sheppard said, grunting a little as he hauled himself, unsteadily, to his feet. "What the hell happened?"

"Michael's alive?" McKay questioned again. Unable to fully comprehend the full impact of that statement with everything he knew as rapidly as his genius brain would have liked, he replayed the last several minutes over and over in his head, beginning to pace back and forth. "Michael's alive. Oh, this is bad. Very bad. This is _so_ not good."

"McKay!" Sheppard called, and McKay stopped pacing and turned to face him. "What are you talking about? What happened?"

"There was a… a ship, a…" he gestured again, unable to describe what he had seen. "It took off, the Darts followed. It's how I managed to get back here. I—"

"What? When?" Sheppard demanded, immediately shaking off most of the rest of the effects of his grogginess.

"Just a few minutes ago, I—" he winced as Sheppard snatched the remote from his fingers. "Hey!"

"We gotta get after him." Sheppard started to lower the rear of the Jumper. "Stop him."

"Look, Sheppard," McKay started, still reeling from the news, but he'd had more than a belly full of Sheppard running off half cocked, getting them deeper and deeper into trouble. "If Michael's still alive—"

"He is."

"—we're not in a position to tangle with him right now. Look at you, you can barely stand, you've lost… most of your team, and he already—"

"He still has Teyla," Sheppard interrupted, rounding on him. The expression on Sheppard's face was as ugly as he'd ever seen and he started to feel more than a little afraid.

"She's alive too?" he said mildly, attempting to defuse his friend's temper. "Well that's good, isn't it? Very good, I mean—"

"And Michael still has her," Sheppard said, stopping right in front of McKay, and explaining as if to a child, "and we need to rescue her."

"Of course we do," McKay agreed, then frowned at the look that passed fleetingly across Sheppard's face. "I just think we'd be more likely to do that if we had… you know… reinforcements."

"We don't have _time_ for this, Rodney!" Sheppard snapped. "_Daedalus_ is out there, and Michael is out there. We have to get this Jumper in the air, and stop Michael before he can get away."

Without another word, he turned and boarded the Jumper, beginning to power up the small craft.

McKay looked quizzically at the two remaining soldiers, but if either of them knew what was going on, loyal to Sheppard, clearly neither of them was going to tell him.

* * *

He had given thought to recalling his cruisers, even his Hive, but in the end decided there was no time, that he would have to adopt a more direct strategy. There would be no time for finesse or clever trickery. If he were going to get the facility safely away from the system, he would have to be ready to punch through whatever lay in wait, and make the jump to hyperspace at the first possible moment.

Without even a moment to see to the wound in his side, though in truth that had receded to a dull ache, so long as he didn't try to move too much, he strode onto the facility's bridge, and grasped a hold of the controls at the console.

Proximity sensors screamed at him as he lifted the craft sluggishly from its hollow mountain resting place – a place that should have been safe for _months_ to come, perhaps even years, without the interference of the humans. He sighed, and pushed back the thought. There would be time enough to confront his feelings on that later, when he was safe… when the facility was safe, and more importantly: when Teyla could be given more than just adequate care.

"Two ships," his current lieutenant interrupted his thoughts. "One's a Wraith cruiser."

"Fire all forward weapons," he tilted his head, his eyes narrowing, "Let's see if we can't… encourage them that discretion may be the better part of valour after all."

"Sir?" the lieutenant questioned.

Michael shook his head, "Never mind."

He knew the hybrid would obey the command, even if not understanding the sentiment that went with it. He was too tired to explain, too concerned to spare the time and what energy he had he reserved for the piloting of the facility.

Taking a breath, he closed his eyes, falling into rapport with the facility's systems, and increased their speed to give them a good escape velocity. He was gratified when, in the next moment, the audible sound of the facility's weapons firing rapidly along their forward trajectory. He didn't expect it would solve all of the problems, but at least it might give them a fighting chance.

* * *

"Commander!" The Wraith second in command merely gestured to the forward screen and immediately the commander could see the danger.

"Take us out of the immediate trajectory, prepare to return fire," he ordered.

"The humans?"

"Leave them," the commander snarled. "We will deal with them later, if there remains a need." He rounded on his second in command in the next moment, when the cruiser still lay in the path of the oncoming fire from the ship that was launching from the surface. "Do as I command!"

The cruiser lurched clumsily, but at least it was moving. The commander shouldered his way onto the tactical controls, the Wraith there stepping aside. As quickly as he could, the commander retasked the cruiser's weapons, preparing for the moment when the craft broke the atmosphere. One well placed shot would be all that was needed…

* * *

"My God," Caldwell breathed as the forward section of the ship became visible from out of the planet's atmosphere. "What the hell _is_ that?"

The ship was as unlike a Wraith Hive or cruiser as Caldwell had ever seen, and yet was clearly Wraith in origin. The pointed forward section was sharper than a Hive, and the sides of the ship more rounded. Along the rounded sides, more pointed, spiny protuberances jutted in a downward angle, as though they were meant to anchor the ship into place, like a burr or some kind of strange interstellar seed.

This particular seed prickled with weapons that were obviously charged and still firing in random directions, clearly in an attempt to deter would be attackers.

"Wraith cruiser is firing, Sir," Marks said.

Caldwell held his breath. The ship was going to be blindsided. Climbing from the atmosphere straight into incoming fire… what chance did they have?

Even as he watched, countless Darts swarmed from the belly of the gargantuan pocket-like ship like wasps from a nest, each moving toward the incoming fire, intercepting it and blossoming into spinning incendiaries that scattered throughout the vicinity. Some even continued on toward the cruiser itself.

"Son-of-a-bitch," Caldwell breathed. "They're going to make it."

* * *

Michael winced as the impact from the fire that made it through his cordon of sacrificial Darts tossed the facility sideways, and slammed him against the slightly curved console.

"Damage report," he hissed.

"Minor damage to the secondary hull – all critical systems still intact," a hybrid reported.

"Return fire, all batteries. Target the cruiser's weapons," Michael ordered.

The facility lurched again, and Michael tensed his arms to keep him in place and to keep the facility flying an even course.

"Time until we can open a hyperspace window?" he asked, glancing urgently at the forward display.

"Two minutes and twenty seconds," another hybrid answered.

"Too long," Michael answered, watching as the Wraith's Darts began to move to intercept them. If they got caught up in dodging the small fighter craft it would leave them open to attack from the cruiser on the facility's vulnerable underside.

He pushed his mind, trying to think of another way, another solution, but he was tiring. The wound was open again, and bleeding. The pain was a distraction, weakening his resolve – his connection with the facility's consciousness.

A cry of alarm refocused his attention on the forward viewer just in time to see the human fighter craft careening toward them. Concentrating hard, he forced the nearest weapon turret to take aim and fired. The craft disintegrated barely far enough away from the facility to avoid causing serious damage, and even then the deck lurched dangerously beneath Michael's feet from the shockwave of the explosion.

Adrenaline surged as the answer became clear.

"We're changing course," he snapped, and taking a deep breath once more closed his eyes to fall into a deeper connection with the facility.

* * *

"Colonel Caldwell," Marks yelped in horror as he realised the other ship's intentions. "They're changing course, heading straight for us!"

"Get us out of here!" Caldwell ordered, and Marks shifted his hands on the controls, trying to follow orders. His stomach knotted as he realised there was no way it was humanly possible.

"They're too close, Sir," he answered, barely restraining the panic in his voice.

"Take evasive action, Major," Caldwell repeated firmly, and his superior officer's apparent calm lent him the clarity of thought to see the one remaining answer.

* * *

Caldwell held his breath, watching the massive bulk of the ship closing on them fast.

In spite of the panic he'd heard in his con. officer's voice, he trusted the major to find them a way out of the apparently inescapable destruction toward which they were heading… or more accurately, which was heading their way.

The deck trembled, buffeted by the shockwaves of the explosions that were still being visited on the other craft by the Wraith cruiser. He had to admit to holding a great deal of admiration for Marks' skill, and not for the first time thought to put the other man in for a commendation, if not promotion.

The ship filled the forward view screen and Caldwell couldn't hold back his own nervousness any longer. He opened his mouth to remind the major that he'd been given an order, just as the deck of the _Daedalus_ suddenly pitched beneath him, the inertial dampeners straining, and failing to keep the ship on an entirely even keel as Marks flipped her on her side, just as the other craft would have collided with her, effectively rolling beneath the other ship.

"_Daedalus, this is Sheppard; come in!_"

Caldwell visibly jumped as Sheppard's communication broke the tense silence. He quickly keyed the switch in the arm of his chair and tried to sound composed.

"Go ahead, Sheppard."

"_The ship that just left the planet… whatever you do, don't let them leave._" He couldn't help but shift his eyes to the massive craft that was lumbering over the top of the comparatively tiny form of the _Daedalus_.

"What are you talking about, Sheppard? What's going on?"

"_It's Michael, and he has Teyla on board. Whatever you do, don't—_"

Sheppard's voice dissolved into static and _Daedalus_ wobbled on her axis, torn into by multiple strikes from the Wraith cruiser that had been meant for Michael's ship.

"Damage report," he snapped.

"Hull breech in engineering – we're venting atmosphere," the tactical officer reported. "Shields down to ten percent."

"Damn it, we've been played," Caldwell snarled. "Bring us about, Major. Disable that ship!"

He turned his eyes to the screen as they peeled away from beneath Michael's ship, watched the other craft starting to pull away toward open space. Sighing heavily, he shook his head, even as their weapons' fire began to reach its target and impact Michael's vessel, having no idea where to aim, it was not going to be easy for them to stop the inevitable.

* * *

"Pursue them!" the Wraith commander roared, then grabbing the one he had displaced from the tactical controls and dragging him back into his place ordered, "Target their hyperdrive generators!"

He snarled, cursing the pilot of the other vessel and cursing himself. He'd been so stupid. How could he not have seen the ruse for what it was? Using the human ship as a shield for their retreat was the most obvious gambit and if he lost the Abomination's ship now, after he had summoned the fleet…

Desperation settled over him, as the familiar spider web pattern of light began to form in the open space ahead of the ship.

"No!" he roared in denial. "Stop them!"

Desperation became defeat, a yawning, heavy chasm into which he fell as the bulk of the Abomination's craft, and with it, what remained of his people, appeared to elongate slightly as it was pulled quickly into the closing jaws of hyperspace.

* * *

She stood by the full length viewing port staring out into the swirling blues, and purples, and the pinpoint diamond sparkle of the dust that reflected the light from the nearby stars, so long in the beauty of it that she did not hear his entry into her chambers.

Michael took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She too had bathed, and was dressed in the sleeping clothes that he had provided for her, soft Athosian linens that draped around her in a style more ancient still than her people's history. Her hair fell softly against her shoulders and the gold of her skin peeked delicately from between the falls of it. He swallowed hard in the face of her beauty.

"I told you we would see it again," he said at last, and he felt, rather than saw her smile, and felt her mind in his, whispering an invitation to join her. Slowly he crossed the room toward her, letting the door fall closed behind him.

"The cloning facility?" she asked him as he came.

"Safely away to the outer worlds. We will remain here while the Hive regenerates," he said, coming to a halt behind her. She turned to him, the smile still on her face, but tempered with something else… a need, a… longing.

Frowning softly he lifted a hand to brush his fingertips against the cut on her cheek, but she caught his hand, and brought the palm of it to her lips.

"It is nothing," she told him, kissing the palm of his hand.

"Teyla," he sighed, and took her into his arms. "It has been a long day. You should rest."

She leaned against him then, releasing his hand, to press her head against his chest, moving the linen of the shirt he had put on against his skin. He felt her breath through it, and his breathing quickened. In spite of his own tiredness, he began to feel the stirrings of desire.

"You could have been killed," she said, barely audible against him as her hand brushed down his back, and settled carefully over the top of the area where the dressing that covered his wound lay concealed beneath his clothes.

He reached for her hand, his fingers barely brushing her own as he lifted it away, held her arm in such a way that their skin barely touched – her hand against his linen clad wrist, his fingers around her own.

"Come," he said, and drew her across the few short steps to her bed, guiding her to sit, and then lie down. "Rest."

"Michael, don't," she whispered, and caught his shirt as he began to move away.

"I'm not going far," he told her, and squeezed her fingers softly as he removed her grip from his shirt.

Taking another breath, he stood once more and crossed the room to where the lantern still burned, and carefully snuffed out the flame on the wick, leaving the room lit only by the glow of lights from the nebula outside the ship.

"Dying for your protection would be… no real sacrifice," he began softly as he started to return to her, preparing to join her on the bed as he did. She reached for him as he lay down beside her, and he gathered her against his side, his hand coming to rest against her belly as she caressed his upper arm. "But it is not something that I intend."

She swallowed hard as she looked up at him, and he tilted his head, part in query and part in worry at her apparent fear. She lifted her hand from his arm and tenderly caressed the side of his face, over the bruise that had formed beneath his eye, before brushing softly over his lips.

"Death is never something we intend, Michael," she said, "but if we invite it, it will surely find us."

"I will care for you, Teyla," he said. "Keep you safe. I will allow _no_ harm to come to you. I have told you that."

She slipped her fingers into his hair, guiding him closer, inviting the brush of his lips against her own, and he responded as tenderly as he had ever been, breathing out slowly into the sharing of the kiss.

"No more talk of death and harm," she whispered as he pulled away from the kiss. "Not any more."

A/N Many thanks go to Michelle Turchiano for additional material used as an inspiration in this act.


	4. Act 4

Stargate Atlantis

**Crossing Lines**

_To make it home, sometimes you have to go too far._

**Act 4**

The pallet was comfortable under his back and Ronon could feel the heat of a fire against his side even through the softness of the blanket that covered him. He tried to recall his last memory, but all he could see was the darkness sliding upwards before his eyes. He must have fallen – succumbed to his injury before he could reach his destination.

Cautiously he ran his hand over his body. He was warm, but no longer fevered, he could tell that much. His injury was bandaged, just above the waist of his breech cloth, but otherwise he was naked. The thought left him slightly uncomfortable, unknowing of who it was that had brought him to this bed – cared for him. He opened his eyes on the edge of the thought.

The room was dimly lit by light coming from two small windows, and the lanterns and candles that looked as if they had only recently been lit. He surmised that it was early evening. The simple furnishings spoke of the occupants' agrarian lifestyle. Home spun cloth, hand crafted chairs and a large bed that was lashed together in the style that several of the peoples of the Pegasus Galaxy were wont to do – including the Athosians.

He held his breath and turned his head to search for any living soul. Perhaps he had reached his destination after all.

He spotted them across the room by a low table. The woman had her back to him, but from the movements of her body he could tell that she was either chopping something or mixing something with her hands, and on the table beside her he could see jars of ingredients that lent further credence to his impressions. Behind the adult, looking in his direction with eyes widened in surprise or trepidation, a young girl momentarily met his gaze before she reached up and tugged at the woman's skirts.

"Mamma," the girl whispered, "He's awake."

The woman turned and the girl moved to peek from behind her hip. He looked up, trying to soften the frown he could feel on his face; to find the woman's eyes, and in turn couldn't help but take in her appearance. She was exactly as Teyla had always described her friend. Her frame held a strength that was softened only slightly by the clothes she wore, her long brown hair, clasped and braided in a Laquoian knot, to sit down the front of her left shoulder, revealed the dark shape of a tattoo on the right side of her neck. Her face was soft with concern that filled her light brown eyes.

"She described you well," she said as if she had read his thoughts, and wiped her hands on the apron she wore. "How are you feeling, Ronon?"

"Good," he answered, speaking haltingly. His voice felt rough to him. "Thank you. I didn't mean to cause you trouble, I just—"

She shook her head, cutting him off. "Caring for your hurt was no bother, and you are Teyla's friend, so always welcome here."

He tried not to flinch at the mention of Teyla's name, but had to look away at the rush of emotion that began to grow in him. He barely saw the woman nod, and reach behind her for her daughter's hand.

"Chaya, take the peelings to the hogs now, and see that they are safely penned. Then check to see if there are any eggs – we will need them for our evening meal," she told her and the girl scampered to obey.

Ronon only looked back at Raisa when the door clattered shut, his own emotion tempered by a need to protect the woman from the reason of his visit. As she poured water into a cup and came toward him, to kneel beside his pallet, he leaned up on one elbow. The pain in his side was dull now, and moving slowly as he was, was bearable.

"The girl's father?" he asked softly, not knowing why he should.

The huff of a laugh tinted with tempered bitterness escaped Raisa before she answered, "Long gone. Took what he wanted and then left with his masters."

"Raisa, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—" he cursed himself for his clumsiness, but she handed the cup to him and then laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Don't be, even with all that happened then and afterwards, I would not change what came of it." She glanced fondly to the door. "For out of it I was gifted with the life of my daughter, and with Teyla's friendship."

He sighed, as did Raisa.

"Ronon, I have a fear," she continued, nodding at the cup in his hand until he sipped, and then took a drink of the cool water within. The goodness of it slid down his throat and he fought, and failed not to gulp at it until Raisa's hand closed around his wrist.

"What?" he asked, and finally met her eyes again.

"That you are here to bring me news that I do not wish to hear," she said. He looked away again. How could he tell her, after all she had just said, how could he take that friendship from her in the telling of the truth. He did not have to. Raisa spoke again, guessing, "She's gone, isn't she?"

"Raisa, I'm sorry," he said quietly, and setting down the cup, took her hand in his. "If I could tell you that it wasn't true, I would, but… yes, she's gone."

"Tell me," Raisa said, tightening her fingers around his.

He lay back, trying to recall in any coherent sense just what had happened and still held as tightly to Raisa's hand as she did to his.

"We… were aboard a Wraith Hive," he began. "Teyla had asked us to go with her. She was… looking for someone – meaning to rescue—"

"Michael," Raisa interrupted softly. "You're speaking of this… Michael."

At the mention of the name, so hated to him, he snatched his hand away from Raisa's and growled, pushed her away a little, before turning his head away, as angry tears came to him. It was irrational that he should blame Raisa simply because she had spoken the bastard's name and he fought to calm himself, knowing, by the sound of her sigh, and her movement that he had hurt her. He found more than anything he did not want to do that.

He sat up, and saw that she had turned away. The physical pain at the movement as he edged toward her banished the anger and pain of loss. He reached for Raisa's shoulders, closing his fingers around the cloth there, and murmured an apology. She sighed, and almost leaned back against him.

"I only know because she spoke of him when last I saw her," she told him, a slight catch in her voice. "She was so desperate to find her son… he had her son."

"His people still do," Ronon told her.

"What happened, Ronon?" Raisa asked, turning her head, but not pulling away from him.

"We got separated. The Hive was attacked and… she never made it off before the ship blew," he told her, unable to be more than brutal with the truth as he knew it.

"So she did not suffer?"

Raisa turned fully then, and her eyes were filled with tears as she looked up at him, pleading with him to tell her that it was true.

"It was quick," he confirmed. "She wouldn't have… known."

He drew her in closer when she covered her face with her hands and started to weep softly, finding that his own tears – finally good, cleansing tears, answered hers.

* * *

"Bad news, Sheppa—" Caldwell's voice rolled over him, first in sorrowful tones of apology, and then raised in incredulous demand. "What the hell happened?"

"Where is he?" he demanded, bothering with neither sentiment. His eyes sought out the HUD, looked for the truth of any debris or otherwise. He strode right past Caldwell as the colonel rose to his feet from the command chair.

"We couldn't stop him," Caldwell answered angrily. "He used us as cover. We barely—He opened a hyperspace window, minutes ago. Since then it's been all we can do to keep the Wraith off our ass!"

"McKay," Sheppard snapped, and when the scientist didn't move, but stood looking between him and Caldwell, he repeated, louder and with an impatient edge. "McKAY!"

"I'm on it," McKay said at last, and began moving toward the bank of computers at the rear of the bridge.

"Now, just a minute," Caldwell moved into McKay's path, his outstretched arm halting the man's movement even as he spoke to Sheppard. "Didn't you hear a word of what I just said?"

"I heard you tell me you let Michael get away," Sheppard accused, stepping up to his superior officer. "I heard you tell me that Teyla's still out there with that bastard!"

"Look at you, Sheppard," Caldwell snapped back, turning into the confrontation. "You should be in sick bay, not here on the bridge. You're not thinking straight. I _told_ you there was nothing we could do. Michael came straight at us – used us as cover from that Wraith cruiser which, in case you had failed to notice, is still trying to blow the crap out of us!"

Sheppard sighed, "He has. Teyla."

"That's as may be, Sheppard, but…" Caldwell sighed, and stumbled slightly as the deck lurched again. "You're better than this, John. You may be an irritating young flyboy, but you'd _never _endanger your subordinates the way you are – the way you _have_. What the hell happened down there?"

_There was desperation, almost agony in Teyla's voice when she called out for Michael. Even as Sheppard struggled with Michael for control of the 9mm he could hear it. It was like a knife to his heart, and he almost faltered, _almost_ let go of the weapon except that at her cry, Michael turned them both… dragging him off balance. He brought him closer to Teyla. _

_The stun blast caught him by surprise. The pain of it, of every nerve firing at once, stole his breath, and he stiffened against Michael's restraining grasp. His hands numbed, and opened even against his will, and he vaguely heard the clatter of metal as the weapon fell to the floor._

_As consciousness faded – as Michael lowered him, almost gently, he had to confess, to the ground – he turned his head and watched as Teyla threw the stunner from her hand. Her expression was painful to see, as if she could not believe what she had done._

_Out, damned spot! Out, I say!_

_"Teyla," he tried to whisper her name, and did not know if the words made it from his lips. "What has he done to you…?" _

Sheppard shook his head, "Look… the longer she's with him, the more—"

"I get that, Sheppard, I do," Caldwell told him, "but we're in no state to follow him right now. Even if we _did_ catch up to him, we can't fight. Shields are practically down; the aft cannons are off line, the forward ones are barely functional. We're nursing a hull breech. There's _nothing _we can do."

"But—"

"We'll _find_ another way," Caldwell said. "We're done here."

Sheppard stumbled, pain and tiredness rushing in as though Caldwell had just run him through, or poured a metric tonne of concrete over him; weighed him down. He barely felt the man catch his arm, or saw him nod to two hovering orderlies, only heard his words, like some terrible sentence – life with no chance of parole.

"Escort Colonel Sheppard to sick bay," he said. "Major Marks, get us out of here, and set a course for Atlantis – best possible speed."

* * *

Malcolm tilted his head, his eyes still closed, and his fingers still in contact with the controls of the command station on the bridge of the Hive. With little effort he effected a minor course correction, brought on by the churning uncertainty that tangled through the Hive's semi-sentience.

It was long past time that the commander should have acted against the Queen. In Zenith, the one time it fell to a Wraith male to take complete command – to subjugate the females to _his_ will; to demonstrate _his_ worthiness – his own paternal line; the ultimate in knowing between Wraith, Queen and Her Hive.

_He ducked the outstretched talons that came at him again, and turned with the angry Queen as she sought him. He kept himself at her shoulder, his wide robes flaring and tangling at her ankles. He kept pace with her, like the steps of some deadly tango._

_He did not touch her, would not, until the madness of her need, guided by his will, caused her surrender; subdued her; broke her like the riding beasts of their human prey. Instead he pushed, pushed with his mind, a demonstration of his strength; the beginnings of an image, of sensation… of his intent._

_She fought the intrusion and attempted to blind him with a counter-image, a rejection of his seduction and in the same moment altered the direction of movement to leave him vulnerable and unguarded. She swung at him, claws leading, and he had no choice but to raise his arm in defence, catching her wrist against his own; the only contact he—_

A burning hiss flooded every sense, fired every nerve and tangled around each neuron as the Hive recognised his contact and responded in a single rush. The desperation of the ship's own sentience settled, like a tumultuous ache, through his body.

Gasping softly, and angered with self recrimination at his careless lapse, he snatched his hands away from the console, and stumbled back a step as he withdrew to the safety of his own mental fortress.

"Second?" The voice of the Hive's third-in-command crossed the distance between them as the other Wraith followed the sound. "Is something wrong?"

"No," he snapped, "It is nothing. Our course was incorrect. I have rectified the problem."

"But you—"

"I must feed!" he snarled, turning on the third, and giving the subordinate commander an excuse he knew the other Wraith would accept, for all that it was a lie. He felt no remorse at such an action, only contempt for the other, risen to such a rank as he held, who should be aware enough of his own environment to understand the anxiety that gripped every living organism that was a part of the Hive.

His tight braids spread out as he spun around, meaning to leave the bridge and go to his quarters, already sending out the mental call to Jethera to attend him, but then recoiled even from that. What was he doing? Had he finally succumbed to the Hive's Zenith driven madness?

"Hive Second!"

Malcolm turned to face the human that had called his name with such urgency. His face hardened into a deep frown. Behind the speaker, a small group of worshippers were gathered at the entrance to the bridge. Two of them carried the immobile figure of a Wraith between them, and two others dragged a third worshipper between them. The prisoner was bruised and bloodied.

"Explain," he demanded, watching as the worshippers set down the Wraith, clearly dead, on the deck of the bridge.

"Let me go!" the struggling human growled at his companions and increased his efforts to gain his freedom.

"He did this," the speaker said, gesturing to the fallen Wraith. "He was seen tr—"

"Liar!" the prisoner cried, "You seek only to—"

"He was _seen_, Lord," the speaker said.

"While the wraith was—" another cut in.

"Gutted like a—"

"You're all _lying_."

The cacophony of human voices descended into an audible brawl of accusation and counter accusation, and buzzed around the bridge as an ever increasing crescendo.

"Enough!" Malcolm snarled, pushing the weight of his mental voice to the command.

_{enough} {enough} {enough} {enough} {enough}_

Silence relieved the bridge of its distress, but it was thick, tense and heavy with the stench of fear. His gaze shifted over each face, finding the eyes of each man. Some looked away, shifting their eyes to avoid his gaze. There was more there than the worshippers' compliance with Wraith law. He looked on the speaker, a Handler he had seen before in his dealings with the worshipper community. The man lifted his head, meeting Malcolm's eyes. He saw little humility there; had not expected to. He was never humble, that one.

"Tell me then," he invited, his voice full of soft menace. He should simply execute the six of them and be done with it, but some perverse sense of needing cruel satisfaction stayed his hand. As he waited he moved the drones to block the entrance to the bridge that stood just behind the knot of worshippers.

"Lord, this one was seen to bear a knife often in the Lower Station," he shifted his eyes to the side to indicate the prisoner. "Today, scant few hours since, he was caught murdering this Wraith as he attempted to feed on him."

"Attempted?" Malcolm queried, moving his foot so that it dislodged the dead Wraith's hand from where it rested and it fell, palm up, against the deck. The maw was open, the barbs had not retracted, and traces of enzyme caked milkily against the rest of his hand. Whatever the truth, this Wraith _had_ been disturbed while feeding.

"The Wraith was unsuspecting, Lord, and this man gutted him while he fed," the speaker said.

Malcolm breathed in deeply as he walked around the fallen Wraith and closer to the worshippers. A sharp new scent rolled over his sensory pits, heady and musky. He let go of the scent with a hiss as suspicions sharpened in his mind. Oh it was a clever ruse, but ruse it was, and he would have the choreographer of that deception and stake him as a rug across the entrance to the lower station; a warning to the entire Hive not to assume stupidity of him.

"Go on," he said, deadly calm, and walked along the line of worshippers to reach the prisoner still held by the others. He walked slowly, breathing in deeply of each man's odour, seeking the self same human musk that he knew he would find. He couldn't help but feel a certain amusement in wondering if these men would break and confess before he had completely uncovered the truth.

"Go on, my Lord?" the speaker sounded confused, "There is no more, I… he was caught and we—"

"You sent for me, Hive Second?"

Jethera's voice, coming from behind him, from the corridor that led to the Queen's quarters interrupted the man's stuttering. As she spoke, in tilting his head to acknowledge her presence, he caught it. The scent he sought lingered heavy against one of the men that was restraining the prisoner. That one, that ungrateful piece of offal had been the perpetrator of the crime against the Wraith and the penalty for such a crime was clear. He could not be allowed to live.

_Isla…_

The twin thoughts carried with them a deep, penetrating peal of pain, clenched his gut around it, a spasm of growing fury as he realised, everything suddenly clear, just who _had_ been the architect of this vicious scheme, and for what reason.

Taking in a breath, he hissed slowly and tipping his head to the side to indicate the prisoner, instructed Jethera, "Take this one, clean him up and tend to his wounds. Ensure that he is cared for… well. You may enlist the assistance of your fellow handmaiden for that task."

Jethera stepped past him, and slipped her arm around the injured prisoner's waist, pulling his arm across her shoulders in support as the other two worshippers fell back.

"My Lord," the prisoner's relief was tangible, a balm against the tension on the bridge and for just a moment, knowing what he had just commanded be given to this man, Malcolm almost felt a flurry of guilt picking at his already knotted gut.

He held up a hand to silence the man's gratitude, adding a second command to the list he had begun for Jethera, even as he prompted two drones to fall in behind her for support.

"This one," he nodded toward the speaker, "take him to our Queen… for her _pleasure_."

"I… I don't understand. My Lord, I—" the speaker stuttered.

"Your loyalty… to your Hive commander… is commendable," he said slowly, separating the phrases of the pronouncement he made into short, clipped bites of sound.

"But, My Lord, I—"

Malcolm roared as his patience broke, and as his answer lunged for the human who reeked of the scent that had spoken of the truth of this clumsy attempt to discredit him. His feeding hand latched quickly, the barbs sinking deep within the human's skin as he lifted and slammed the human back against the bulkhead. He threw back his head, hissing in deep, self-righteous satisfaction as he rend the life force to shreds, drawing it into himself with a speed and ferocity that did little to belie his contempt.

The man's struggles faded quickly as he shrivelled to an aged, withered husk, expired and became no more than a pathetic skeletal figure, suspended in the demonstrative tableau.

_{then bring me the woman that knows the truth of all this}_

He sent the mental instruction burning through every mind upon the Hive, and sensing movement at the left lateral entrance to the bridge he turned and launched the shrunken mass toward the Hive commander. The impact shattered what remained, scattering dust as a haze of menace between the two Wraith.

_((if she yet lives))_

Malcolm tore the Hive commander's confession of guilt from the other Wraith's mind. He would have to do better than the clumsy scheme that Malcolm had just unmasked… much, _much_ better. On the edge of that thought, he spun away and let his angry steps carry him from the bridge.

He had never needed Isla so much as he needed her comfort in that moment.

* * *

_"No more talk of death and harm," Teyla whispered as he pulled away from the kiss. "Not any more."_

_"Teyla," he murmured, moving his hand tenderly over her belly, sliding the caress over the softness of her skin to cup her breast, full and heavy with desire, in the palm of his hand. She moaned and shifted against him._

_Fire kindled and burned through him as he came to life at her touch, and pressed closer, their clothing, still between them, only served to heighten the desire as fingers flew in soft, revealing caresses, removing it… casting it aside._

_He ducked his head as she lifted off his shirt, and moved his lips to meet with the caress of his thumb against the risen nub of her nipple. Her back arched as he took it into his mouth, laved and flickered with his tongue against the sweetness of her skin until she cried out his name, and her mind wove a plea for mercy against such a sweet assault as he made._

…_Michael, please… …I want to feel you… …show me… …take me…_

_-Teyla- -Teyla- -Teyla- -Teyla- -Teyla-_

_He answered only with the echo of her name, filled with the resonance of their sharing. How could he tell her of his needs, of his desires? How would she ever know?_

…_show me…_

_His fingers brushed lower, moving back over the plains of her belly – lingering there a moment before dipping lower as she opened to his touch. His caresses glided through the dewy silk, drawing more soft gasps and cries from the melody of her voice._

_The ache at the centre of him deepened to an almost-pain, demanding attention, demanding fulfilment, and he broke from another deep, sweet kiss he had not even consciously known when the cool softness of her hand closed around his risen length to give a cry of his own. Three times as deep, and as strong as he had ever given her… the tones winding around them both… his mind lost in the bliss of belonging only to her._

_-parmhunaeterna-_

_She pushed him away, turned him to lie on his back and freeing him from the last of his clothing, rose over him; straddled him and cried out as she sheathed him. She threw back her head, and let the robe slip down her arms, revealing herself to him. The beads of perspiration over her breasts and stomach reflecting the light from the nebula in bright prisms against her – she glowed with it. Her muscles trembled around him; broke in climax even as she took him deep inside, and he moved a caress to the place of their joining, keeping her alive until her cries became soft moans and she sank against him…sobbing with it softly._

_He ran his fingers through her hair, barely moving against her, inside her, lifted her head from his shoulder to find her lips with his and take another soft sweet kiss as he turned them again, drawing away from her as he brought her beneath him, supporting himself on his arms as he claimed her again, and she arched her back to take him deeper still._

_"Michael," she breathed against his shoulder, drawing him down to her, her fingers on his back like the touch of alternating heat and cold. Maddening, enlivening… so right to be this way it was almost his undoing._

_"Teyla…" he gasped softly, "…I can't…"_

_"Sssh," she moved against him with a rhythm and he fell into it, moving against her, within her, so aware of every part of the both of them, bonded in body and in mind that the hypersensitivity of opening inside of her, giving to her his innermost self was a prayer that brought a cry from the very heart of him. He arched his back, sank deeper still._

_"Yes… Michael!" she cried out for him and he could feel the tension in her body building, gripping her, as she gripped him, the two of them moving as one, abandoned to the sharing and powerless to be anything other than the sword to the chalice of her desire._

_Her cry became wordless as the moment took her and she trembled around him again. Sensation gripped him, fractured whatever remained to keep them apart and he voiced a cry of his own… shattered and emptied himself to the fount of her being; breathlessly flowed into her the waters of all of his life, all of his existence._

_"I am yours," the words fell from his lips as he tumbled to cover her, unable to hold himself up any longer, "Teyla."_

_She clasped him to her breast, pressed her cheek to his, and whispered his name over and over again – a prayer as she bathed him with the tears of their becoming._

Waking slowly, Michael sighed softly, and ran his fingers through Teyla's hair as she lay pillowed against him, deep in sleep. The beauty of the nebula's glow still lay, lodged in every pore of her skin, cooling now, and as if the thought reminded him of the need to protect her, ever from nature itself, he drew the blanket over her more fully.

What would become of them?

What would become of her, now that—?

The slight disturbance through the neural net of the Hive ship interrupted his thought as he sensed the approach of one of his lieutenants. He did not fear that the hybrid would enter the inner chamber, but for them to have even dared to come this far told him that whatever matter they brought to him was important, and loath as he was to rise, to leave the tranquillity of their rest, he carefully shifted his body out from beneath Teyla.

She murmured softly, as if protesting his movement, but at the softly whispered assurances he gave her, did not wake.

"Rest, Teyla," he said quietly, "I will not go far."

He pulled the blanket over her once more, and moving with the silence only he could command, freshened himself, dressed quickly, and headed for the door to the antechamber of the Queen's Quarters.

* * *

Her eyes were open, but unseeing, and though she was almost fully aware of the sounds around her, a different reality gripped Keller's mind. She wanted to cry out to the one whose touch she could feel rested carefully on her arms, but her voice was tight with the half-scream that was forming inside of her.

_The liquid fire in his hand travels along his arm, the massive conflagration inside of his cells continues unabated and he snarls a cry of the pain of it. It should not feel this way, he knows, somehow, within the confusion in his mind that there should be rapture and strength, not this shattering burning pain._

_He tears away from the prey, still gasping for life beneath his restraining touch, draws back his hand and slams it forth again, feels the movement of the barbs against the other's flesh and expects the sweetness of the life to fill him again._

_Instead the pain comes. Instead he is almost thrown back by the rejection of it, not at all himself, but desperate. There is something he must do, and the need of it drives him to find his feet, and rush from the dying form, to seek another…_

_Twigs and branches barbed with thorns tear at his flesh as he moves… he stops to sniff the air, crouching like some primal beast of legend as he catches the scent… prey, and this one gravid – heavy with life. He speeds on… catches her even as she screams at him for mercy and throws her to the ground, covering her, hand already mantled._

_This time there is satisfaction as he feeds._

The cry she gave was primal, full of horror. The terror of it gripped her and shook her against the bed until she became aware of the voice, gentle and soothing, as soothing as the touch against her forehead.

"Jennifer, look at me," the woman said, "It is all right. You are in the infirmary on Atlantis… that is it… good…"

Keller blinked up into the concerned, deep brown eyes of the doctor – she struggled to remember her name – and gave a trembling nod.

"Sorry, I—" she started.

The doctor shook her head and spoke, "It is all right, Jennifer. It was just a dream. You are safe."

"Doctor…?"

"Haddad," the woman told her, "but you can call me Ayatesha. What do you need?"

"I don't know," Keller said. The words were little more than a sigh. She brought her hands up to cover her face. "It's so crazy. I feel like I'm two people at once."

She took her hands away then, to look at the other doctor, pleading with her to tell her what was going on, even though she knew that no one could.

"If I thought I could give you any answers, Jennifer," Haddad said softly, "I would gladly tell you. It could simply be because of the two sets of DNA inside of you that you are fighting so much… that your dreams feel this way."

"You don't believe that," Keller accused softly.

Haddad sighed, and eventually shook her head. She swallowed and then looked up to meet Keller's eyes.

"Tell me," Keller said, her voice a hoarse whisper, "Whatever it is, I don't care any more. I just need to know. Ayatesha, I'm afraid. I can't _do_ this."

"No," Haddad said softly. "You will survive, Jennifer. You are young and strong, and soon Carson will come back to us with the means to help you. You _will_ survive."

Keller couldn't help but think she saw, in Doctor Haddad's eyes, the words that she did not say: _though you may wish that you did not._

_

* * *

_

It was the sound of voices, and the absence of Michael's warmth that woke her. Teyla sat up quickly and reached for the robe she had discarded in the heat of their shared passion, falling into memory as the soft fabric brushed against her fingers…

_His touch moved between the tender folds of her body, pressed within her, a knowing touch that stole her breath and left her gasping softly, moving to catch the touch, that gave so much to her, even as he took the comfort that was his, in giving to her._

_She was so close, she knew she would not last, but still wanted to give, to him, the pleasure that he brought to her, and so with an insistent pressure she pushed until the touch withdrew; until she could turn him, rise over him and shrug aside the robe._

_The touch of his hardness against her as she straddled him drew a moan from her lips, and her already trembling body became more fevered still. Pressing against him… sinking onto his length and opened by his girth she shattered – unable to hold back the wash of sensation that brought her to the peak of her desire. She cried out, and his arms came around her in support, and in the maddening touch that kept her there… at the moment of pleasure until, breathless and boneless with the unbearable bliss of it, she sank against him in fulfilment…_

Teyla snatched a breath as the physical memory coursed through her. Why had he left their bed? She frowned in the vague memory of his voice, telling her that he would not go far, but… had that not been _before_ they had shared so deeply of their desire?

Quietly, and quickly she rose from the bed, straining to hear the voices that had been a part of her waking. She wound the robe around her body until she was covered decently, before she allowed her steps to carry her toward the sound. The door slid upward even as her hand reached for the panel to activate it. The Hive responded to the thought; the need in her mind.

"And you are certain that it is genuine?" Michael said.

"One hundred percent," the hybrid answered. "When we received it, we checked it three times before even thinking of disturbing you."

Michael appeared thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded.

"Very well," he said. "As soon as our regeneration is complete, bring us to within range of the rendezvous coordinates and prepare my scout ship."

"Michael?" Teyla said softly, stepping into the doorway.

Michael turned to her with a frown, and moved closer to her. The hybrid, she noted, slipped his eyes respectfully toward the floor of the Hive… almost an obeisance.

"You should be resting," Michael told her softly, but there was an edge to his voice, not anger or displeasure, just the hard edge of his businesslike persona. "I apologise if we disturbed you."

She shook her head.

"I am well rested," she told him, though it was a lie. She felt tired, and the ache of her lingering pleasure left her feeling languid and heavy, but she wanted him with her. She did not wish to rest alone.

"All the same…" he trailed off, swallowing as his eyes met hers.

"Where are we going, Michael?" she asked him, "Why?"

He drew himself up then, and she watched the mask descend over him as he came close enough to reach for her, and to rest his hand onto her shoulder.

"I am sorry, Teyla, there are things I must attend to, matters that require my presence elsewhere than at your side." he told her quietly. He tilted his head then, and ordered the waiting hybrid, "Carry out your orders, and inform me when we have arrived."

"But where are we going, Michael?" she tried again, reaching up to lay a hand in the middle of his chest. Behind them, the hybrid bowed his head in obedience, and left the Queen's Quarters. "You still have not said."

"No," he agreed, "I have not."

"Why won't you tell me?" she asked softly, trying not to let the hurt of his denial colour her voice, though she could not keep it from passing along the bond that was wound strongly between the two of them.

…_you do not trust me… still, you do not trust…_

_-I trust you, Teyla- -it is for your safety- -safety- -safety- -safety- -safety-_

"There is little to tell," he tilted his head, frowning at the expression that she knew must be on her face. "We have received a message from one of our facilities that necessitates that I attend to matters there. That is all."

"And until then?" she asked him, and could not help glancing back into the chamber behind her. She wanted only to be resting in his arms.

He smiled softly, and for a moment framed her face with his hands, caressing both sides of it as he tilted her head up to his.

"I will have the nursemaid return the child to your care, and I will join the both of you later," he said, before leaning down to almost gently capture her lips in a delicate kiss. In spite of knowing that it was his intent to divert her, the words and action together silenced her protests.

* * *

Unease churned in Malcolm's gut as he reached the Queen's Chamber. The Queen was seated on her throne, and the commander of the Hive stood at her side… behind her, only her secondary handmaidens stood in wait – among them, Jethera, whose expression held warning as she sought out his eyes.

He would have reached for her mind, to take the truth of the hastily called meeting from her, but he felt the Queen's gaze fall on him and instead swept into a low bow, coming to one knee.

"You sent for me, my Queen," he asked softly.

"Hive Second," she addressed him, her voice rimmed around with an almost playful cruelty, thinly veiled before the assembled commanders and worshippers alike. "An unfortunate matter has been brought to my attention."

The unease sharpened to a sense of painful, almost angry fear at her words, and at the shifting of the Hive commander at her side.

"Have I… displeased you, my Queen," he asked, and calling the commander's bluff, if not the Queen's, he moved closer to the dais, and began to open the snaps on the front of his leather armoured coat. "For if I have, my Queen, then surely my life is forfeit. Take me as you would, madam."

"No… Hive Second," she raised her hand to stop him. "Rise. You are and have always been my loyal servant."

"Then, my Queen, what has—?" He stopped as he spotted the commander's concubine, leading Isla, bound, and her eyes swollen and red from weeping, from the rear of the room. His belly clenched around the anger as he rose to his feet, forced himself to hold his ground and not cross the room to tear the rope from Isla's hands. That was what the commander expected of him – fool that he was to try, so openly, to manipulate his ire to unwise actions.

"This woman was a servant of yours, was she not?" the Queen asked.

"Indeed, madam," he answered. "She was my body servant."

"And you dismissed her… why?" the commander asked, drawing an angry glare from the Queen for his audacity.

"Did she displease you?" the Queen asked.

He drew in a sharp breath – caught – manipulated almost cleverly by the cruelty that streamed from the commander's gaze to settle heavily against him even as he turned his head to look on Isla one more time. There was nothing he could do to save her now. If he did not tell the truth, likely the commander would call him out, crying disloyalty against the Queen and if he told the truth, Isla's life would be cruelly plucked from her by some uncaring Wraith at the Queen's behest.

Anger stronger than any he had felt surged through him, and for just a moment he gave thought to simply flying up to the top of the dais and tearing the commander's head from his body to toss it protectively at Isla's feet.

_It's all right. I know._

The voice held such sorrow that he almost stumbled to his knees again. She had almost never reached out to him in this way, and for her to do so now, at the moment in which death hung over her as a sword waiting to fall cut into him as surely as if it had fallen on him.

"Hive Second, our Queen is waiting," the Hive commander's voice was mocking, further stirring Malcolm's anger, and he lifted his foot to the first of the steps.

"If it pleases you, my Queen," Isla's soft voice answered, cutting the thickness of the silence that had fallen. Malcolm blinked.

_{No… Isla… do not} {do not} {do not} {do not} {do not}_

He saw the commander frown, the other Wraith stepping forward.

"How _dare_ you speak, when—"

"No," the Queen cut him off. "The girl has courage. Let her speak. I would know if she understands why her master has forsaken her."

_{not forsaken, never that} {that} {that} {that} {that}_

Isla ignored both his warning, and his reassurance. He felt her pulling away from him again, and was left cold in her absence.

"My Queen," Isla pulled herself from Hanna's grasp, and came to the middle of the chamber, coming to her knees before the assembled Wraith. "The Hive Second dismissed me from his service – a mercy I do not deserve – because of an accident that befell me and one of his Wraith brothers as I sought to return to your service… and to his."

"Accident?" the Queen asked, glancing between the commander and Malcolm.

"Yes, my Queen," Isla answered, before either Wraith could speak. "I sought to return, with instructions to survive to do so. I fought off the needs of a Wraith that followed me, and he slipped on the steepness of a slope in the woods. I pushed him away, and he fell… and was killed in the fall onto the limb of a fallen tree."

"Isla…" Malcolm hissed, lowering his head. Dismay filled him. She had condemned herself.

A collective gasp ran in a circle around the Chamber, and on the edge of it the Queen rose to her feet and began to descend the steps. He had no choice but to turn and watch, sick to the depth of his soul as the Queen approached Isla and reached out with the razor tipped fingers of her feeding hand toward her.

The girl closed her eyes.

In his anguish, Malcolm reached deep inside himself, winding himself into the torrent of pain that lived there and cried out into the maelstrom.

_{Matron, why} {why} {why} {why} {why}_

_::trust::_

The single word was like a punch to his already aching heart… bubbling hatred and love both filled and emptied him, and it was all he could do not to stumble, reaching out on instinct.

His fingers brushed against the warmth of a body, and opening his eyes, not even aware that he had closed them, he met the strong but sympathetic gaze of Jethera staring back at him as she guided his hand to her shoulder.

The Queen hissed suddenly, and drew back her hand, before snatching Isla up to her feet, the tips of her razor sharp finger-guards drawing sweeping lines across the girl's chest.

"You will live, girl!" she snapped, and without a moment's pause, launched Isla across the room, where she fell at the feet of the Hive's third in command. "The one you bested should not have shown such weakness."

_=weakness= =weakness= =weakness= =weakness= =weakness=_

"But my Queen—!" the Hive commander protested.

The Queen rounded on him, hissing angrily, "You _dare_ to question my decision?"

"N-no, my Queen, I only—"

"Take the girl," the Queen turned away from the commander then, and snapped the words, like a gunshot, at the Hive's third-in-command. "She is yours to do with as you will."

Malcolm's fingers tightened against Jethera's supporting shoulder, in his hopelessness, wondering what manner of reprieve that truly was for Isla, if at all.

* * *

The dream haunted him… he couldn't get the shadowy figure out of his mind or calm the frantic beating of his heart. Sweat still pricked between his shoulders and matted his hair to his head… even as he reached the Control Room – dismissed the Gate tech to get them both coffee.

There was only one thing he could do to bring him relief… and sitting at the console he began to input the data into the sensors, extrapolating the results, making sure that they confirmed what they needed to confirm.

There could be no questioning this, if the outcome were to be as he desired.

* * *

"_I hear you, Colonel Caldwell_," Woolsey's voice cracked slightly as it came from the speakers, underpowered due to the diverted power supplies aboard _Daedalus_. "_But I'm afraid there's no other choice. The data is clear, and the activity must be investigated. This close to Atlantis, we can't afford to ignore it. If the Wraith are on our doorstep—_"

"With all due respect, Mister Woolsey," Caldwell answered, exasperation colouring his tone of voice. "I don't think you _are_ hearing me. Daedalus is in no fit shape to take on even a single Wraith Hive. We're barely maintaining hyperspace, flying with a patched up hull, critical systems are barely holding on, and as far as weapons and shields are concerned, even _if_ Doctor McKay can get them back on line, there's no telling how long they'd hold. We'd be sitting ducks. There's just too much risk."

"_Colonel Caldwell, I don't think you understand_," Woolsey pressed, his tone hardening, and Caldwell knew in that moment that he might as well piss into the wind. He wasn't getting out of this. "_This isn't a request. There's a Wraith Hive ship approaching one of the planetary systems bordering Atlantis and we need to know what they're doing. We've faced greater odds than this, and survived. I'm making it an order, Colonel - top priority. Atlantis out._"

Caldwell sighed.

"Major Marks," he said, tired and his voice full of regret. "Prepare to alter course, and bring us out of hyperspace. Inform Doctor McKay of our needs and tell him to whine about it to Woolsey. I don't want to hear it."

"Aye, Sir," Marks answered, also sighing. It was a suicide run, and both men knew it.

* * *

He sighed… relief and nausea fought for mastery of his body, both at the same time. Watching from the corridor just outside the Control Room; listening as the technicians coordinated the information they had with the telemetry coming in from the _Daedalus_, he had no choice but to remind himself that the end justified the means. Atlantis and her agents – the fighters aboard the _Daedalus_ and the ship herself would prevail, and he would finally… _finally_ be free of the hissing presence in the back of his mind once and for all.

* * *

"Sir!" Michael frowned as a hybrid appeared at his shoulder, carrying with him a tablet that was already scrolling with rapidly changing telemetry. The simulation he was running still had another twenty minutes to completion. He couldn't afford to be interrupted. So much depended on the results of that simulation.

"What is it?" he snapped, snatching the tablet from the hybrid's hands.

"We dropped out of hyperspace several minutes ago. A second ship followed. It's—"

"What!" Michael turned and started for the door, unable to believe what the data readings on the tablet were telling him. "How is this possible? How did they _find_ us?"

For a moment, he gave a fleeting thought to the idea that the Atlanteans had planted yet another homing device on Teyla while she had been with them, but shook his head, dismissing the thought. He had scanned her – more than once since she had returned to him. He would have known.

They had been led there, then. Again he shook his head. That made no sense either. That one was no more able to betray him than he was likely to betray himself. No… there had to be another explanation – and the suspicion that was growing in his mind was so far away from comforting that he almost… _almost_ gave the order simply to abandon the rendezvous, and send his Hive away to safety.

Almost.

He turned his steps rapidly toward the bridge. He had to get this done, and quickly. Atlantis could not be allowed to interfere. He would destroy them before he allowed that, and _then_ make his break for the freedom of safety. By then he would have the results of his simulation _and_ the information he would gain during the rendezvous. All would be well.

* * *

The subordinate commander hardly dare look up from the ground as the Queen came to stand before him. Already his second in command was dead, a shrivelled husk, lying at his side.

He'd had no choice but to contact the Queen and tell her what he knew – but it had cost him dearly… and he was certain that if he did not give her the answers she sought, he would be paying for his failure yet further.

"You are certain this is the heading they were taking?" she snapped, forcing his head up, leaving him with little choice but to meet her eyes.

"Yes, my Queen," he answered quickly. "There could be no other place. If you would like, I can—"

"No!" she snapped, tossing him backwards. He fell under the momentum of her push, and slid backwards a short way. "I have already sent another!"

"As you command," he gasped softly.

"Indeed," she answered, and he thought she sounded almost amused. "As _I_ command."

* * *

"What the hell's going on?" Sheppard had to shout to make himself heard over the shrilling of the alarms on the bridge and the whoosh of the fire suppression systems.

"Sheppard, you're supposed to be in sick bay!" Caldwell yelled back, and almost fell over the side of the command chair as the ship lurched, and yet another explosion rocked the deck.

Sheppard turned to the forward view screen, ignoring the other man's answer as the HUD winked out of existence, and watched in growing horror as Darts and F302s engaged in fiery dances between the _Daedalus_ and the Wraith Hive.

"Where the hell did _that_ come from?" he asked, turning back to Caldwell.

"I don't have time to explain," Caldwell yelled, and in the next moment was forced to throw up his arm as the space to his left erupted in fire, and the sounds of screaming human immolation.

Horrified, Sheppard grabbed a fire extinguisher from the nearby technician and ran toward the tactical station, already calling for a medic as he emptied the extinguisher over the stricken officer.

"Shields at 25 percent, Colonel," Marks announced, "That last hit took out our lateral targeting array. We're out of choices, Colonel."

Pulling the officer from the damaged, but still operational station, and handing her off to the medics that appeared at her side, Sheppard threw himself into the tactical station, even as he did he ordered, "Bring us about, Marks. Take us in head on."

"Sheppard!" Caldwell warned, as he began switching all power to the forward cannons. "We can't do this. Orders or not, we have to get out, and get out now!"

"Us or them, Steven," Sheppard countered. "Our fighters are getting slaughtered out there, and we're all but dead in the water. Which is it to be – us. Or them?

He saw a moment of indecision on Caldwell's face, and then the older man sighed.

"Do it," he ordered, nodding to Marks.

Sheppard closed his eyes for a moment, settling his resolve. Going down in battle had always been the way he thought it would end… just… never quite thought it was going to be quite so soon.

* * *

"They're turning," the hybrid announced.

Michael growled, irritated. He could see the human's ship was turning, and had already sensed that it was coming for them, even before their forward weapons' fire began to batter against their hull.

The Hive bucked and danced under his feet, and his fingers grasped more firmly against the intuitive controls. He shifted the targeting computer's aim and fired back… their advance toward him would not be without casualties. Already he could see the plumes of fire where his attacks punctured the hull of the ship, and the rush of oxygen sacrificed itself to the momentary flame that gave its life in the vacuum of space. It would only be a matter of time… of waiting until the right moment and then their interference in his plans would be curtailed.

No more would the Atlanteans slip in at his back to ruin his plans… destroy his facilities, and prevent his advances.

No more would Sheppard come between him and the future he had tried so carefully to build for himself and for his people, his Cause.

In but a moment of patience he would be free of the constant shadow of the man that—

_"He would have given you clemency," she whispered, "but every time you taunt him, and you push and push until he cannot bear it. Why, Michael?"_

_"Bear it, Teyla?" he questioned softly. "What is _it_ that he cannot bear – to hear the truth? To know that he was instrumental in doing to me as no compassionate human would, and that in giving me a choice that was _no_ choice, and then forcing that end upon me time and again he has created the very thing that he now so despises?"_

_"But you never gave him the chance to—"_

_"I gave him _every_ chance!" Michael raised his voice, taking another step her way and once more freezing with the fearful conflict that flowed through him as she backed away again. More softly he said, "Every chance, Teyla. I would have helped Atlantis, but was instead rejected; came to you for help, and was denied. At every turn he has hunted me."_

_"Wouldn't you?" She took a step his way then, unwrapped the defensive shield she had made of her arms. "In his place, if admitting everything you had done had brought about the terrors that you had sworn to defend against, that you would lose everything you were, everything you had ever hoped for, and the one thing that you… love. Wouldn't you?"_

The ringing mental note of confirmation… of his target lock against the human's ship echoed in his mind and he looked up for a visual confirmation of what he already knew. The targeting reticule sat dead centre above the point at which his sensors told him the ship's main reactor core was located, flashing alternately in red and amber as the _Daedalus' _shields failed.

"I would," he murmured softly, shifting the targeting sensors a mere half a degree.

* * *

"Shields are down!"

"We're venting atmosphere on decks three and four!"

"Life support at ten percent!"

"The Wraith ship is still firing!"

The wave of panicked voices sped around the bridge as key personnel fell to spreading fires and increasing explosions, and committed to the only course of action left to them, each standing member of the crew braced themselves for the impact they could only hope they would survive long enough to reach.

"Sheppard, do it!" Caldwell yelled above the sounds of the _Daedalus'_ death knell. "Do it now!"

* * *

Nethaiye whimpered softly as Teyla held him close. She leaned against the viewing port, watching the many explosions and flashes from the battle that raged outside… cringing at the dull sound of each weapons' blast that hit the Hive ship.

"Michael," she whispered softly, as if he could hear her. "Please…"

And as she recognised the spinning form of the crippled 302 that narrowly missed the side fin of the Hive level with her observation window, and felt the Hive power up; as she caught a hold of the wall beside the viewing port as the Hive banked, and the inertial dampeners failed to equalise _all_ of the sudden motion, she caught sight of the fiery shape streaking toward the planet over which they now sailed. Though she feared for her Atlantean friends, she knew that she _had_ been heard.

Leaning her head against her son's soft scalp, she let go of her tears… fear for herself… for her son… fear for Michael and all of Pegasus overwhelming in that moment.

* * *

The whine of the superheated hull caught in the free fall of planetary gravity, and the sound of someone urgently calling his name roused Sheppard from the dull sense of dislocation that blanketed him. He raised his head from the console, wiping the redness of blood from his eyes, and tried to take in the scene around him.

Marks was down, pulled from his station by Caldwell, who leaned over him administering emergency aid. Caldwell's flight suit was scorched and blackened where Sheppard could see it, and livid burns coloured the side of his face, visible even in the dim light that remained on the bridge.

"Sheppard!" Caldwell yelled his name urgently once more, "Did you hear what I said? I said try and route the flight control to your station… Have to… have to slow the ship!"

Sheppard shook his head, trying to make sense of everything, of what Caldwell was saying; of what he knew. They'd been almost on top of the Hive – staring, almost literally, down her weapons' ports, prepared for anything… prepared for impact…

_The shot never came, at least not as he expected. They were too close for any Wraith to have missed, it should have been all over. Then the explosion twisted _Daedalus_, bucked her wildly and threw her out of alignment, at the same time the Wraith Hive banked hard to port, out over the planet, and the wake of her engines, firing on full power, further spun them away from the Hive, pushing her further into the gravity of the world below._

"There's no way they should have missed," Sheppard murmured.

"Never mind that," Caldwell ordered. "Reroute the power to your station… slow the damn ship before we're all of us incinerated."

Sheppard blinked.

"Re-entry…" he croaked, clearing the blood out of his eyes again, and wiping his hands on his shirt, before moving his hands rapidly over the console in front of him, "right…"

He keyed in the command sequence. Nothing. Tried again, and a third time, still the controls remained lifeless in his hands.

"It's no use," he yelled.

"It _has_ to be," Caldwell called back. "It's a failsafe, if the con. goes down, helm reverts to tactical. Try it again, Sheppard. DO IT!"

On a whim, Sheppard raised his booted foot and brought it down hard against the side of the tactical console before once more keying in the command to transfer the controls to his station. The screen flickered once and then resolved to life, the full flight controls in front of him.

It wasn't as comforting as it should have been. There were alarms and red lights across the board, but one glance at the forward view screen, where thin lines of stress were beginning to create a spider web pattern amid the heat and light, told him that he had little choice but to work with what he had. Not without a little desperation he began punching buttons and firing all the breaking thrusters he could access, hoping that it would be enough and hoping that, when the reached the surface of the planet, there would be sufficient control remaining to prevent the effort from having been an entirely pointless exercise.

**Act 5**

The hybrid that had once been Major Lorne watched her with cold, hard eyes, her every move open to his scrutiny as she walked around him and unfastened the restrains into which they'd placed him when they brought him to the isolation room. In her eyes it was inhuman to keep him so bound, especially when the only time he had displayed any violence was when others had first visited violence on him.

Ayatesha ignored the feelings prickling through her, the pressure of his gaze, and the twitching unease of the two SOs who were standing at the doorway to the isolation room, focussing instead on the compassion and the admittedly scientific curiosity which she held in Lorne's regard, but neither did she look at him until all of the restraints were unfastened.

He still did not move, but he spoke.

"Aren't you afraid?" he asked, the voice was soft, almost resigned or bored. There was no threat about it.

"Should I be afraid, Evan?" she asked.

He chuckled, and then shook his head. "Finally, someone that understands," he said.

"I think you will find that—"

"Someone besides Beckett, I mean," he interrupted. She gave him a nod, conceding his insight, and then allowed him to continue. "Why have you brought me here, Doctor? What are you going to do to me?"

"Do? What makes you think I intend to _do_ anything," she asked. "You have been infected by a retrovirus. I am a doctor. It is in my duty of care to the people of Atlantis that I have brought you here."

"You don't believe that any more than they do," he said, nodding toward the two SOs at the doorway. "Otherwise I wouldn't be under guard."

"They did not give me any choice," she told him honestly. "It was either here under guard, or you were to remain in the brig. I cannot treat a patient in the brig and so… here you are, and here _they_ are."

"What if I don't want to be treated, Doctor? What then?" he challenged.

She sighed and stepped closer, to almost whisper to him, "Major Lorne, Evan, I am trying to _help_ you. I—"

"Ah, the old Atlantis excuse," he murmured, sitting up a little. "They told _him_ that. They were lying then as you are lying now."

"No," she refused to be intimidated, "I could not care _less_ what _they_ think, or what _they_ have or have not done. I—"

She stopped as he reached out and slowly, deliberately ran his fingers over the scars at her wrist. She raised the other hand to wave the SOs back to their places when they raised their guns and stepped toward him.

He withdrew the touch and lay back against the medical bed, and meeting her eyes again with a raised eyebrow, asked, "What is it that you need, Doctor?"

"All I wish is to be allowed to—"

"Doctor Haddad, what do you think you're doing?" Varnerin's voice cut across hers. "This creature is a dangerous individual who—"

"This _man_," she stressed the word as she turned her back on Lorne to face the greater threat, "is a patient of the infirmary. He was never discharged, nor should he have been. He is suffering from the effects of a retrovirus, and as medical practitioners, it is our duty to see to his care, not simple to imprison him for something we do not understand."

"And that's why you saw fit to remove the restraints, hmm?" Varnerin pressed. "To _understand_ him, not at all to make it easier for him to escape."

"Would you _listen_ to yourself," Haddad said, her tone sarcastic. "You are as dismissive and as paranoid as any man I have ever met. By understanding the genetic manipulation that has occurred in him we may be able to help others, including Doctor Keller."

"Oh, I think you _understand_ Doctor Keller far more than you would have us all believe," Varnerin said as he stepped closer to tower over her. "Given your… past history with such research."

"Do not seek to threaten me, Professor Varnerin," Haddad said, though she did step back to put some space between the two of them. "Other, far more frightening men than you have tried."

"Other men did not possess the knowledge that _I_ do, my dear young woman," he said. "Your research – the things you would not share with the Military…"

Ayatesha swallowed. There was no way he could have got a hold of that information. It did not exist in _any_ form accessible to anyone but herself. Even the notes she had made, while deconstructing Carson's original research she had destroyed, and even under the strongest of persuasive methods employed by the black ops team sent to oversee her exile, she had revealed nothing more than the means by which the retrovirus worked… knowledge already common since Michael's creation. Varnerin was bluffing.

"If you have nothing of clinical use to say to me," she told him, trying not to allow her voice to waver, "as the senior member of the duty staff, I strongly suggest you leave the infirmary, before I have you removed."

"Oh… play hard ball with me, little girl," Varnerin hissed and began to step closer. Ayatesha couldn't help but look away. He halted suddenly, as if he had collided with a brick wall. She turned her head back in time to see Lorne swing himself from the medical bed, his arm braced against the taller man's chest, to put himself between her and Varnerin.

"I believe the doctor… has asked you to leave," he said firmly.

Ayatesha once more waved the SOs to stand at ease, and almost smiled at the look of indecisive anger on Varnerin's face.

"You can't—" Varnerin began, but Lorne tilted his head. The gesture cut him off.

"I may not be on active duty, Professor," Lorne said, "but I am a member of this expedition, and an officer of the Air Force. As such, I understand the code of conduct becoming an officer and a _gentleman_, and I am certain that were I to suggest to these two fine officers that they escort you from the infirmary for behaviour unbecoming of one in your position, I doubt either one would hesitate."

He turned his head slightly to look in the direction of the SOs, and Ayatesha saw them both shift uncomfortably. They tightened their grip on their weapons but also turned to the side and the closest of them gestured toward the door.

"Professor," he suggested softly.

Varnerin growled, and turned a baleful look Ayatesha's way as he warned her, "This isn't over, Doctor. Sooner or later you're going to have to tell the truth to someone, and when you do…"

"The door, Professor," she answered softly, echoing the SOs gesture toward it.

He turned on his heels then, and stormed angrily away, and Ayatesha was gratified to see that at least one of the SOs went with him as far as the outer door.

"Do what you need to do," Lorne said, settling back against the medical bed. "But do it quickly. I doubt you will have much time."

* * *

Isla stumbled back to the rough cot in the corner of the room to which she had been relegated, barely made it to sit, then all but fall sideways, drawing up her knees to shelter there in the middle of her bed. For many long hours she lay in a cramped foetal ball, her throat raw from the tears she had already shed, aching for more but unable to find a way to release them.

After a time… and slowly, closing her eyes on the bruises already visible on her arms and her wrist she reached beneath the thin mattress of her cot, and closed her fingers around the coldness of the metal she found there, drawing it forth. She opened her eyes and let the light from the Lower Station's main room – not so far from these quarters she had been given, if they could even be called that – glint off the blade of the small, but sharp knife she had concealed there.

It would not take much… and the pain would not be as much or as lasting as that she had already suffered at the pleasure of the Hive Third. Slowly, her hand trembling, she brought the cold metal to the side of her neck…

_::survive::_

_"I was beginning to think that you would never wake."_

_Her eyes flew open. The familiar sight of her benefactor before her, the one that had vouched for her in many things and had secured her the position she enjoyed, the relative comfort of a nursery attendant and the privileges that went along with the position, she enjoyed all because of him._

_He smiled, and she looked away, ashamed._

_"Forgive me, Lord, I—"_

_"Hush, Isla," he told her, his triple toned voice winding around her in greater comfort. "It is I who should crave your forgiveness for allowing such a thing to befall."_

_"But I—"_

_"Rest, my little one," he told her, pushing the command just slightly against her mind._

_{rest} {rest} {rest} {rest} {rest}_

_Her eyes closed. It was the first time he had ever truly made himself known to her in such a way…and she found herself craving more._

_::survive:: ::survive:: ::survive:: ::survive:: ::survive::_

Sobbing once more, she let the knife fall from her trembling hand.

* * *

The darkness on the bridge was absolute, and no sound or movement came to suggest that anyone had survived the barely controlled re-entry, or the crash landing that had followed.

A moment or two passed, before the beams of other flashlights than McKay's began to cut swaths through the smoke, and darkness, and noise slowly resumed with the disturbance of metal panels as they were cast aside – the medical team searching for survivors.

McKay trembled, and took another deep breath from the portable breathing apparatus he half wore, half carried, and swung his flashlight from one side of the ruined bridge to the other, calling out softly, as if he did not dare disturb the unnatural silence aboard the _Daedalus_, crippled as she was.

"Sheppard?" he whispered, and then almost audibly called out his friend's name a second time. "Sheppard… John, can you hear me?"

* * *

His footsteps echoed hollowly on the concrete floor of the laboratory. Like many of these facilities it had been converted from some building of a long forgotten or destroyed community. There was a kind of irony in that.

The pale green light emanating from the still occupied generative tanks bathed him in a sickly glow, and Beckett tried not to look at the figures still floating within the luminous fluids; tried not to watch as they twitched against unmonitored stimuli – most likely pain.

"You've taken a great risk in coming here, Doctor."

Michael's soft voice coming from behind him chilled Beckett even more that his accidental discovery. Slowly he turned to face his creator, and in spite of knowing how futile it was, tried to raise the 9mm slowly in his hand.

_Fin_


End file.
